Monkey Wards Sewing Machine
 

After I hit Joann Fabrics' Black Friday sale in Olympia today I went around the corner to the Goodwill nearby and found a sewing machine that needed a new home. By the looks of it I'm guessing it's an early 70s model and isn't the prettiest machine ever made but it seems solid enough and does have some features my Singers lack. For $12.50 it was kind of hard to go wrong.
All my Singers are Class 66 machines and straight stitch only. The Wards machine has around 8 built in stitches, a built in button hole feature and more importantly a vertical bobbin arrangement and feed dogs that can be disengaged if I want to try free motion quilting. From what I've read here, the vertical bobbin arrangement makes it easier to get good results.
I've powered it up and it seems to function ok though I haven't actually threaded it and tried to sew with it yet. So far the only issues I've found is the feed dog knob is stuck and I managed to find one or two stitch settings where the needle hit the pressor foot. The stitch settings are most likely operator error.
Any idea what bobbin it uses and where can I find an owner's manual?
Thanks,
Rodney
Here's a quick picture I took of it on our couch.

It likely uses standard Class 15 bobbins, and a manual can probably be found by searching for the model number, if there is one.

Looks like the machine also uses cams? The stitch width setting for some decorative stitches should be set on width 2 or 3 (if the scale goes from 0 to 5). That may stop the needle from hitting the presser foot.

Are the ends of that machine orange? That machine does not use cams it has a cam stack adjusted by the lever at the top of the machine. I think it uses class 15 bobbins. You will need to oil it with some tri-flow to free up any knobs or levers which remind me a lot of some of the older Berninas. You may need a lot of patience to get everything moving smoothly. It is not real intuitive to use - caution and patience... I don't know if you can find a manual or not.

No idea to help, but loved that you called "Montgomery Wards," by it's nickname "Monkey Wards." Haven't heard that for awhile. We have a "Monkey Wards" treadle, complete with leather belt that my husband uses as a night stand/table. Good luck finding the information you need.

I haven't heard Montgomery Ward's referred to as "Monkey Ward's" in years! :o I hope you have good luck with your machine. It should be a good machine. I have heard M Ward's made great machines.

Apparently I dated myself with Monkey Wards.:D
Miriam it does have the orange ends and the built-in cams. I don't think I've seen that shade of orange on anything since about 1972.
I haven't taken the top apart yet, it has some trouble shifting between stitches. I'm hoping some oil in there will help. I've got it sewing. I had a few minor tension issues to sort out but it's doing fine now. A little more work to free up the knob that works the feed dogs and a little work on the top to get the stitch selector working and I think I'll have a pretty good machine. I'll also give it a good cleaning. The insides are looking good, no rust and no dried oil residue either. It's obvious it was never over-oiled, possibly not oiled at all by the previous owner, but the outside is pretty grimy, especially the case.
It's keeping me out of trouble anyway,
Rodney

Open up the top and use Tri-flow on the stitch selector stuff - then give it time out - I don't know what oil they used on those but they tend to stick. Turn it in every direction so the T-F can go in the little cracks and nooks. I had a different stuck machine under my bench for a time. I just oiled and turned it every once in a while - one day it decided to work - the only thing I did to it other than clean it up and re-do the tension... grime cleans off...

Good find there Rodney. They built them to last back then!

My wife’s first sewing machine was a Monkey Wards. She ordered it right outta the dang catalog in 1975, shortly after we got married, and paid the $44 for it using what was most of our wedding gift money to get it. It was a bare-bones basic zigzag with no case. Someone got confused at the Wards shipping department, and sent her one by mail and another one by truck freight. She was only billed for one, so she sent one back, and then had a terrible time explaining to Wards that she wasn’t due a refund. It took her over a year to get them to take that refund off of our Wards account. We didn’t dare spend it, for fear that they’d realize their mistake and want it back when we couldn’t come up with it.

She sold it in a yardsale in the early 90s, and we found a single photo in our mass of pictures that shows just enough of it that we think it was a Signature URR-266. In 2011 we found a Signature UHT-J266B made by Happy that looks like it too, so now we have that one displayed on a shelf in the sewing room. It’s a 3/4-sized machine, the bed is 6 1/2 x 12, but it weighs a whopping 26 pounds! It has a light bracket but no light, and no sign that there was ever a light fixture attached to it (no scuffing of the paint by screws). Maybe that was part of the reason they were only $44.

I mounted that first one in a small desk and the wife sewed anything and everything a growing family needed with that thing for over a decade. She replaced it with a snazzy free-arm machine in 1990. She ordered it right outta the JC Penney catalog, but then, that there’s another story.....

CD in Oklahoma

ThayerRags I think I like your machine better than mine. Yours has much cleaner lines to it.
I do have the decorative stitches working now. I just have to turn the machine over a bit to get it to shift, kind of like a car with a bad clutch. It may be the way it was designed to work, I don't know. I also found the bobbin winder isn't working. I suspect the rubber wheel on it is shot so it's not making good enough contact with the drive wheel inside. I still haven't got the knob for the feed dogs freed up. I think the knob's shaft is frozen solid where it passes thru the bed of the machine. If I can get the set screw holding the chrome knob on loose then freeing the shaft up should be easy. I just don't want to damage any parts while I'm at it.
These small problems are probably why the machine ended up in the thrift shop. I'm no expert but so far I only have a few hours into it and it's almost fully functional again. We truly do live in a throw-away society.
Rodney

Rodney, Keep using T-F on the moving parts. You just haven't found the part that isn't moving yet. That baby will shift easily. I'm thinking there may be plastic parts in there so you want to go easy on chemicals or heat. But then that might have been a Bernina I had - very similar set up. Use the T-F as you shift it. Gently rock it - or you can oil the machine, turn it over and oil again. Then set it on one end or the other and wait. I had one I left in the car trunk on a hot day and it worked - then it froze up again as soon as it cooled off - at least I knew the machine would work so I kept oiling.

As far as the feed dogs go you may be oiling the wrong place. The place to oil is the thing on the end of the feed dog drop shaft. This thing has very close tolerances. It is the most often frozen area on a sewing machine and can take the most trouble to unfreeze. You can use brute force - most men are inclined to that - you can use heat or you can use T- F and wait. I'm inclined toward T-F over night and heat the next day... give it time - do you see the dried on oil on the end of the 'bullet'? This one is stuck, too but I doubt if that is the exact spot - it is more likely inside that shaft the bullet rides in will have the exact same dried on oil you see. It is the oil you can't see that is stuck. The other end by the shaft will need a good soaking, too - that pin will come out when you can freely turn the knob. You will want to oil the crack in the middle since it will move once that 'bullet' is out of the way. I soaked a bit of T-F on mine but I think this one is going to take some heat. It is hard for the T-F to penetrate all directions unless you turn the machine from one side to the other or go end to end. Once it decides to unfreeze, clean off oil residue, re-oil as you turn the knob above - work the oil into that tube and you are good to go. [ATTACH=CONFIG]449395[/ATTACH]

Nice machine!!!

Rodney, Give this a try. Hope it helps. Ruth

http://www.montgomerywardsmanuals.com/

Hey cabinqltr, thanks for the link. I went and looked at the photo for our Model 266, and it shows all of the features by arrow. Item “L” is “SEWING LIGHT (IN BACK) OPTIONAL EQUIPMENT”, so the light was an option. We probably didn’t buy the light for our first one, and neither did the folks that we bought the second machine from.

This little wards 266 machine is starting to remind me of a Singer 192 Spartan. "No frills".

CD in Oklahoma

That looks just like the one I found on the curb. Didn't have time when picked up to see what was all wrong. Got home and a lot was missing. I put it back on the curb. Parts were expensive the ones I could find. Just have to keep digging. The one I had was orange on the ends. It was just so heavy and really didn't want after getting it.