Free Westinghouse Model 803 made by Riccar Japan Vintage help
 

I found this machine in my basement of my apartment building free. I cannot find a manual or what cams it uses. Can anyone fill me in on what cams it uses? Manual available? The only other one like this I could find was on your website from 2010. There is not another one in picture form I could find. Anyone that could help me I will be so thankful as this needs a rewire and some other adjustments.

Glowy, I don't honestly know which cams. The door and spindle look a lot like an old White that I have, and also a Remington. All of these machines were made in Japan in the 50's or early 60's - perhaps even from the same manufacturer. Unless someone here knows exactly which cams... I would also try the good people over at the Vintage Japanese SM Yahoo group:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...ns/topics/1448

It's a great looking machine and they were made the last.
I'll bet it will sew really well. Worth the effort to save it.

Good luck getting an answer from the Yahoo group, it's all but dead. If you're on Facebook, join the group, "Vintage Sewing Machines (Non Singer)". If there's a manual on this earth, Teena will find it.

Cari

Just a bit of a hint. We often call these Dashboard machines from their appearance to dash's from cars of the 50s.

Welcome aboard.

Oil everything that moves, or should. Try threading it. turn the handwheel by hand and see if it stitches. We can help you through a lot of it. Do you have the slide for over the bobbin?

I do have the slide for the bobbin. This is not my picture. I am not too savy with getting things out of my phone so I used this picture from elsewhere on the net. Sorry, but was the only way to get it in the post I knew of. Sometimes we technical are not so technical. Mine is in the same shape though and needs a complete rewire, which that I have done before so am not afraid of it. The wires crumbled the minute I touched them. THe rest of the machine is in pretty good order from what I can tell. Thank you everyone that replied. I am so happy to have people actually get back to me!!

Thanks for the info, I will have someone else get on Facebook for me, I am not on there anymore. I hated everyminute of it as no one talks to each other and some just plain don't respect others. My opinion, not that I don't think it is useful.

That machine could be treadled! It is very intuitive to thread. We have a thread on here about the old Japanese sewing machines with fancy stitches. There should be a generic manual link on there if the link still works. Victorian sweatshop forum may have a generic zz manual. Unless you have those disks you will have trouble finding anything to work. Sad. But it should be a very nice machine.

Thanks I will check that forum out. I appreciate people like you who are willing to help. Have a great day!