One other thing I learned. You want to keep them about the same temperature and you want to keep them from getting humid. Cold then hot and they will sweat and rust. Too cold and the finish will check. I also learned that the machines that were in bad storage fared best in a case.

Miriam, I didn't know that about temperatures. I kinda figured that moist conditions would not be good. Did you keep them in the house then? I'm a little concerned if I have an ok situation for mine. They are in the garage but it is dry. I have them up on shelves and just few still on the floor but they are resting on boards to keep them off the concrete. It doesn't get drastic temps out there.. In Summer the room will still be pleasant and when it's cold it can get chilly out there but I generally put a fire in the wood stove.

I had a spare house. Houses here are relatively cheap here LOL. Buy an extra one and it will fill up with sewing machines. At any rate I put the machines in the attached garage and yes we keep a steady heat in winter. In summer the room is very well insulated (used to be a dog groomers.) There is also a detached garage for DH. Slowly we have filled the stupid house and moved the shop into the old kitchen... Then we bought the house next door even cheaper.... I'm always trying to eliminate one or two or more machine... It is easier to get machines than to get rid of them. They certainly do not sell for thousands of dollars each. And cheap houses are a money pit.

Oh my! Miriam if I continue the way I am going I will need to move there and get more houses LOL! I am in California...not so cheap here!

OK Are you ready to see more machines? :p A few of them are still really dirty. That Dial-A Stitch especially so. I'm not sure the make on that one. Is it a Kenmore? I couldn't find much on it.

I don’t think that it’s a Kenmore, but if it works, it might be a good candidate to make a treadle-operated free-arm out of.......

CD in Oklahoma

The dial a stitch is Japanese badged so no you won't find much info - see if the knobs work... It looks like it does zz or ss. CD, you got it, that would make a neat free arm treadle! I can't get rid of those godzilla looking machines here at all...

The cost of houses IN Indianapolis is ridiculously cheap how ever getting a bank loan is almost impossible since they have red-lined most of the town. There are neighborhoods and there are neighborhoods if you know what I mean. Outside the city limits prices skyrocket. It's like a huge doughnut with nothing in the middle... We got one house in a bank repo and the one next door from the tax sale uncontested... There are people coming in here from high rent areas and retiring - their cost of living is low compared to where they have been. The driving isn't too bad except the end of April and May when everybody is qualifying for the Indy 500... I think the city makes lots of money from the speed traps this time of year, too. wandering again...

Thanks guys! I had no idea that could even be done. I have a lot to learn about cranks and treadles and would love to learn how to do conversions. I am going to make a note you mentioned it and add it to the file I have on that machine. I am not happy with how he has this one set-up anyway. Apparently the motor was bad so he used a blue Morse motor on it and the belt isn't lined up well so that was going to have to change anyway.

I think it's weird that I ended up taking on so many machines because I would consider myself a newbie to fixing up old machines. I only started doing this last year and still have a LOT to learn. Each sewing machine I work on teaches me something new so it looks like I will be learning a lot! I don't even own a hand crank and would love to convert one to crank sometime too. That will be on my to-do list once I whittle the pile down a bit.

Of these two Kenmores one is very lightweight, the light green one is a super heavy machine! I ended up with 5 15's in all but this one is a centennial. There are 3 27's. This little lady is the oldest one I have. Her serial number dates back to 1896.

Puzzle Box
 

I think I have seen 99 percent of "it" all now. There are boxes of needle plates, bobbin parts, bobbins, attachments but this is the box I like best! I need to work through the pieces here. I am pretty sure they don't all belong to this box. There are some rather old pieces, one of which has been repaired at some time and I have no idea what machines some of these may go to. Some are correct Singer attachments for the Puzzle Box.

These are also in the box and very unusual, at least to me! Tell me what you think. I am showing the front and back of them.