Pretty Western Electric
 

This could be made into a treadle.
Lovely decals!
http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/atq/3295411242.html

maybe it could HC

Has the groove in the wheel for a belt and by looking at the base of the machine one can see it has the holes in it for the belt to go through which leads me to believe that the base was cut from the top of a treadle machine thus making the machine portable, well as portable as one of these heavy brutes can be. Just my observation, looks like the work can be reversed. Have not figured out the little slide lid there on the right, must be for parts? Wood grain don't match up so could of been added at a later time from pieces from the top of the treadle machine.

We have a couple of hand cranks with this type of base - holes for a belt but made for use as a portable and with very nice lids. I wonder if there were treadle bases into which these dropped?

vintage posted another one just a bit ago that the table top looks like this base. Could be they are made to swap out? Tis a mystery, so many of them out there. Confuses me sometimes, well, allright, most of the time. I need a sign on top of my machines, "SEWER'S ED" like "DRIVER'S ED" vehicles have.

I'd leave it as it is. I've been wanting a machine with one of those big honkin motors. It would be fairly easy to repair the top and as for the lack of a cord, that's no problem at all. Just fabricate one.

Joe

Joe - I passed on one last weekend (I think it was the full sized rotary version, though, and it had some pin rash) that was in working shape for $25 or $35 (don't remember which.) The only reason I contemplated it was that the case was beautiful! Really I think the case was prettier than the Frister & Rossmann's. Big beast, though. I think we're going to concentrate on hand cranks and bare treadle heads for a while :)