Laura, not bad on the 27 Looks really good.
Skip

Grant,

That is an incredible transformation. I'm about half tempted to bring two or three of mine up to you and see if you would share some of your techniques. I can get 'em clean and running good, but they don't look that good.

Joe

Grant you do such nice work! My DH would of choked up too - men can have a tender side - caring is not just for us girls!

Laura, I too would have passed up that machine. Been there, done that! But, what a great job you did! What a lucky machine to be found by you!

Nancy

Grant- adding my plea to the chorus- would love to know how you got that machine looking so good! Laura

Grant they are loudly hinting for a tutorial.

Hinting?? Or begging??

Grant, Great job on the 66. She looks real purty now.

Laura, Yours looks good too. I have a rust bucket very similar to yours that I picked up yesterday in my haul.

Monroe, Trish, and Nancy, thanks for the advice about the splint for the finger. Will do that tomorrow either before or after the ortho doc.

Chris

Well DH and I unloaded some of the machines and cabinets today. One cabinet I'm giving as an end table to someone who's rebuilding their life from scratch. No machine in it and it a pressed wood one. DH fixed the cabinet with the bum leg while I looked at the 3rd cabinet. It's for a 99 and one of the machines is a 99 BUT the 99 has a non-Singer motor with 2 male plugs coming from it. I puzzled for a bit, helped DH with leg and then thought to look through the box of paraphernalia. I have a plug in there with a foot pedal and a socket with 2 plugs (for lack of a better description). Both of the male plugs are loose in the sockets so DH not too keen on me playing with this one. I still need to unload the 2 partial tops from the van but DH has promised to help me tomorrow with that. One of them is painted (YUCK!!) which I hope to strip off. I will post pictures tomorrow I hope of the partial cabinets. I believe one is a Singer but don't know about the other one.

Wow, Thank you all for such nice comments. Monroe, Joe, Nancy, Laura, Miriam, Chris, and Makeitmama, it is comments like yours that made me feel really good here.
I have a Facebook page for sewing machines that I do if anyone would be interested. The link is below in my signature. I put a lot of Before pictures and then some After pictures, after she had picked it up. I usually don't use anything really special to clean them. Car Wax without abrasives, Chrome wheel wadding polish, A lot of wooden tooth picks, Q-Tips, and a whole lot of elbow grease.
Sometimes I do have to use more specialized things for really dramatic changes like this rusty piece. It is half done here.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]396027[/ATTACH]

Thank you all again for the kind and encouraging words. It meant a lot.
~G~

chris,

The two male plugs are very simple. It's the non Singer way. One for the motor, one for the light. They plug into a specialized cord block that looks like this one from Sew-Classic:
{ http://www.shop.sew-classic.com/Cord...143-SCE143.htm }
Absolutely nothing to be confused about. It's a simple way to wire the machines. Slightly bend the male prongs to fit tighter in the cord block with the foot controller on it. Nothing complicated there.
These cord blocks usually are mounted in a small compartment on the ends of the sewing machine case as in this case:
{ http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...llfinished.jpg }

Joe