Trying to locate the manual for a Good Housekeepr 850-B sewing machine
 

It is straight stitch and zigzag. Does a buttonhole, that's it. Can't figure out how to thread it and would like to know how to make a buttonhole with it.

You will probably find a manual given time and persistance, but the general way about it is; spool pin, then aim for the top tensioner; look for thread guides a long the way, it's usualy intuitive and the only thing you can get wrong is possible guides for the bobbin winding funciton. Make sure the thread goes inbetween the tension disks (there's two or three of them, three for models that take twin needles) and that the thread goes correctly in place with the check spring. Keep looking for guides along the way; aim for the take up arm and then towards the needle. There's a downward pointing hook shaped part left of the tensioner, I think the thread goes through it before the take up lever.

Detect all oil points, take off throat plate, bobbin cover, bobbin case, clean well. There's probably oil points under the top, the face plate (often hinged on these, or a screw than needs to come off), and there a few under the base of the machine. These machines have to be oiled and run a bit if it's been a while.

Good Housekeeper machines are Japanese made. Good Housekeeper is not a manufacturer, but a name it was sold under. Often, a vintage Japanese machine was sold under several names. Sometimes you can get a manual from one of the vintage Japanese sewing machine groups on Yahoo. You would have to join the group to access their files, though.

You can Google for a Good housekeeper 850 sewing machine manual and might be able to find one.

Otherwise, you have to do is find a identical looking machine. Generally, they have a generic manual that just says "Deluxe Zig-zag" or something like that. I would use Google and Pinterest to find the machine under another name/names. Then, see if you can find a manual for that machine. You can also look at the sewing machine manual sites like https://www.tias.com/vintage-sewing/machines/manuals/. Look at the pictures of the machines until you find one that matches.

I just did a search and someone said Good Housekeeper was made by White. So I would start lookign for a White 850.

Bkay

Hi, :)

A few pictures would help. I am guessing your machine is like https://www.worthpoint.com/worthoped...l-850-48980230 and if so, threading should be similar to http://www.sewusa.com/Threading_Diag...ng_diagram.htm

Hopefully you can find a manual at the site bkay referred you to. I checked http://www.sewusa.com/Sewing_Machine...g_Machines.htm and #36 is fairly close as it has lever type knobs as shown http://www.sewusa.com/Deluxe%20Zig%2.../Deluxe36d.gif

If it is like the picture the for Deluxe 36, does your machine have similar markings? There were a few different ways of making buttonholes. If yours has the same markings for the buttonhole, you might be able to apply page 12 (11 of manual) of http://www.singerco.com/uploads/down...-old-kzb-x.pdf for instructions on how to make the buttonhole.

I can't enlarge the worthpoint image to make sure which knobs are which..... guessing the left one on the the arm is for the buttonhole, the one on the right is for the width of the zigzag, the top dial on the pillar is for the stitch length and the knob on the bottom of the pillar is probably for reverse (just guessing).

Hope this helps. I'm hoping the link bkay gave you has your machine manual.


Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

Bkay, White may have badged a machine with the Good Housekeeper name back in the days when they still built machines in the US but White did not build a Japanese Good House Housekeeper. By then White was no longer manufacturing machines at all, they were trying to stay afloat by importing Japanese machines and badging them with the White name.

Cari

It is nearly identical to the WorthPoint machine.

In my research, seemed to be manufactured by Husqvarna/Viking.