Tori - Welcome. Yeah, the folks on here are really quite something.

I love TOGA's pony express...
and What a great machine to look forward too, well done!

Well folks, The Franklin is HOME!

I really appreciate all of the efforts folks made to help get this machine safe and sound to me.

I got home at about 9:30 last night, so I did not get to do the photo series, but this thing is SO VERY different from any other mechanism that I have seen.

For those familiar with the older "raymond looper" chainstitch mechanism, this is similar but it also moves front to back as well as side to side!

I will be working n it tonight and I will post pics tomorrow

Congrats on getting it home Steve!
Monopas and any others who were involved get Kudos too.
Rodney

Yay! Still very interested to find out what you think (despite the cessation of crazy emails). It is just so tiny!

One of the things a lot of folks are surprised about is the size of the early machines. This machine is small, but not necessarily "really" small in context. The bed size is not too different from my Howe Model A

My initial review shows that nothing seem to be missing or broken. If I added a drive wheel and a needle with set screw, I could probably get it sewing pretty quick.

Mike and Mary (mostly Mike) could not wait for me to get to the TOGA, so they unwrapped the head just to get a look at it.. hehe you really secured the heck out of that, thank you again!!!!

The real issue with a machine as rare as this is, do I clean it or not. Even the gentle "sympathetic" cleaning I try to do, may not necessarily be the best plan for it's preservation. I will look closer tonight, but the small amount of rust/corrosion can be easily removed so it does not get worse, but areas that were painted over, may be better to just leave as is..

Carter Bays lists this as (R/7) (Rare, 7 out of 10 for value) the belief is that there are about 2 or 3 dozen of these left in existence....

Ha! When you first spoke of the pony express, somehow I had a feeling and was going to ask you if Mike and Mary were the ones bringing it to you. Aren't they a great couple?

Cari

This is a beautiful machine. Can you show what the stitch is that it makes? Or find a link to put on here?

I do not have a needle and clamp screw for it yet. I am sure it will sew, once I do.

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here are some detail shots

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Here it is from underneath and behind. You can see where if there was a belt or rubber wheel around the machine drive wheel it would make contact with the flywheel and be operated that way.

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Ahhh early machines... so "uncluttered" underneath
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