Singer 31-15 questions
 

She is now set up and running well. Clutch motor still, but amazingly can control the speed pretty well. I have ordered a darning foot and a walking foot for her. I assume the feed dogs do not drop? Do yall cover them to free motion? or remove them? She is a 1937 model.

You ordered a walking foot for a full sized industrial machine? Let me know how that works (I was told that it doesn't by my OSMG).

For machines that don't drop their feed dog, covering it up is normal. I wouldn't remove it, and the Singer embroidery book suggests covering them too.

You could also set the feed dogs to 0 and see how that works. Why am I thinking the darning foot is just a high shank foot. I would be concerned about starting and stopping with the way the clutch works on an industrial motor. I have not tried it on mine though.

Back in the day, when old-timers set their Singer machines up for darning, they simply removed the feed dogs, and installed a blank needle plate. There were dozens of feed dog, needle plate, and presser foot combinations that were interchangeable for several models of the Singer “old iron” machines like the 31-series, 95-series, 96-series, etc. to set the machine up for specific tasks. It wasn’t even that unusual to change those three items on a regular basis to avoid having to purchase multiple machines. With just a quick change of FD, NP, & PF, the machine was ready to perform a different task. Many of those feed combinations are still available today.

The blank needle plate for your 31-15 is part number 12422. Here is a photo of mine shown set up on my 1936 Singer 96-40. It has no feed dog slots cut in it, just a needle hole.

CD in Oklahoma

CD can you shoot a pic of that hopping foot off the machine?

I don't have the feet yet. Just ordered yesterday and they should be here friday. Didn't know that about industrials and a walking foot, but hey, i got another high shank domestic. It's cool. That hopping foot up there looks much like the one I ordered. Will search for the cover. And how would I set the feed dogs to 0? I don't see any adjustment. (in plain view)

Stitch length very short. That knob on the front above the badge is your stitch length adjustment. Long is in all the way and you can unscrew it a bit to make shorter stitches. Just never ever never ever take it off.

Mariam, that darning foot is a Juki A9811E98AA0A, a currently available foot for Juki TL Quilting machines. I got it on-line from allbrands. We haven’t actually used it very much. Back in 2011, we were using cheap shank adaptors and a low hopping foot for the little bit of FM quilting that we got done on the 96-40, but the adaptors kept breaking. My wife got fed-up with it and switched to a Singer 301A to do her FMQ, and by the time that I got this new Juki foot, she was sold on the 301A, and didn’t have any reason to switch back. She did give the 96-40 another try later with the Juki foot, but then the needle was missing stitches, so she quit it and told me that I needed to fix it. Therefore, perfecting the 96-40 machine to do FMQ got put on a back burner.

Shortly after that, the 96-40 industrial stand was removed from her sewing area and disassembled for storage. We didn’t have room for it if it wasn’t being used. I used the top to get my Singer 31-15 treadle up and running in my sewing area. At that time, I hadn’t found the missing pitman rod coupling nut that the stand needed to be a treadle stand. I still haven’t looked into the missing stitch problem on the 96 yet, and the machine has been shelved since 2011. I recently picked up another treadle stand that I plan on using with the 96-40 (without an electric motor) to try FMQ by treadling it, but I’m not sure when I’ll get around to that either. I’ve been having too much fun playing with my recently acquired zigum-zagum machine, the Singer 20U. I made one of the biggest thread snarls a couple of days ago, that think I’ve ever accomplished before. I had made an ugly button hole (using tex70 nylon thread) in a piece of woven upholstery fabric, and decided to make a “tighter-looking” one. I put waaay too many stitches in one place. Wow, did I ever make a mess! It took me a long while to cut myself loose......

CD in Oklahoma

DC :cool:

HHHMMMM I have a 213 machine with tiny stitch length adjustment.... I'm thinking there is a high shank old Viking hopping foot around... it has plenty of room in the harp... I have a monster buttonhole maker I think goes on the machine but no plate for either one. I should order a plate. I'm also betting it would work just dandy as a treadle - that baby can move.

I have made the worst thread nests on a Consew industrial. I've had to take apart the shuttle unit to get a trapped thread out before - it was how I learned timing and a few other things... When you make a mess on an industrial it goes fast and before you know it you have a 7 day disaster.

Miriam:D

Some industrial machines have a longer stroke on their needle bar than family machines, so watch for binding when trying to mix feet and machines. That’s what was breaking our shank adaptor. The needle bar went just a little too high for the low-shank hopping foot that we were using. It’s probably good that we were using plastic shank adaptors. Nothing else got any damage.

I caught the “DC”. I’ll answer you to that. It’s interesting when you go by your initials as a name. People sometimes have a time with it, especially when in an area like mine where there are several of us using our initials for our name. You never know what people are going to call you. One of my sons is “JD”, so people that knew him better than they know me are still always calling me JD. I quit even trying to correct folks. I know who they’re talking to, so I just let it go.

One guy that didn’t particularly like me once called me “AH”, and I had an idea of what those initials stood for knowing him, so I didn’t answer to that one.....

CD in Oklahoma