Old Machines
 

The tan Singer 401A is my mother's machine, and will be named Gilda. The blue Brother was my old machine from when I was a fairly young. Both need cleaning etc. The Brother has some rust damage in the bobbin area (flood in parents basement due to fire) and it wasn't taken care of at that time. Mother passed away last Oct and my brother brought both of these to me on his visit in Jan 2014. I hope to get both of them running eventually. Gilda will be going in for her update with my machine man in June. They may not be the machines most go after, but that 401A is known as a workhorse.
In high school, I used that old Brother to sew look-alike outfits for myself and 3 friends. That was 50 years ago. Skirts, pants, jackets to match the pants. Oh we thought we were something…

I have the 401a and I love it--wouldn't trade it for anything.

Shoot a pic of the bobbin area of that Brother - side and bottom. I want to see how much rust you have if possible.

Both are great machines. There's plenty of people here who go for both of them. Thanks for showing us. I'd like to see the bobbin area too. If the rust isn't too severe it can be cleaned up.
Rodney

Nice machines. I would say no to a 401A if it shows up in my neighborhood! Getting to have the old machines that have been in your family is a blessing. I was lucky to get mine. One is in the house and I love using it, the other is waiting in the garage for my restoring skills to get just a bit better. ;)

I hope you are able to get them both up and running again.

Derrr...make that *wouldn't lol!

On some of them if they are too rusted up in the bobbin area I replace the parts that come out and then just clean up the rest and wonder of wonder, the machines work. You can get slide plates and throat plates from Sew-classic.

Oh! I have a blue brothers just like yours! It's a beautiful machine and runs really well. Rust on the plate can be taken care of by aluminum foil and water. Wad up a ball of aluminum foil and dip it into water then scrub it. It'll make it shiny again. I picked that up from the American Restorations show on tv. It works well too. But only on the chrome parts not the blue parts.