My grandmother (dad's mom) was a well-known seamstress in our city. She worked for a department store in the designer department and made the designer clothing to be modeled in the annual international fashion show as well as directed all alterations and made a lot of the custom orders herself. She was also an incredible knitter and crocheter. My father and mother had to travel to Indiana on the train and my grandmother unraveled a dress and re-knit it into a very stylish, custom design for my mom so that she'd have something to wear that would hold its shape while sitting on the train for 3 days. She did this in less than 2 days.

Anyway, when my grandmother died, my grandfather didn't know what to do with all her equipment including her sewing machines, 3 of them. My dad offered to take them although he wanted to take them to the dump. He put them in the back yard where they sat and rusted to complete junk in just one year. Apparently one of them was a Necchi industrial machine that was rare and was a gift from the store she worked in all those years to support the family. My mother still tells me how proud she was of that machine because it was a zig-zag and very powerful. I still remember the Singer treadle machine and how we kids would play with the pedal and the stitch length knob, not quite sure what it all did. Well, after the machines were completely unusable, dad got his wish and was able to justify taking them to the dump.

As you can probably tell, I've never quite forgiven him. Sorry to have vented. I'm still trying to figure out why I'm collecting these machines.

Maybe he resented all the work she had to do and it was his way of healing his heart - taking things out on a machine.

I've often wondered if he resented the machines for taking so much of her time, energy, and interest rather than being spent on him.

Thank God my aunt had the good sense to give me my grandmothers sewing machine! Feel your pain KenmoreRulesAll. The Singer I learned to sew on (my aunts machine)ended up in the trash thanks to my cousin. I would have taken that machine in a second. I'm still trying to figure out what model it is, my aunts and cousins memory is not clear. :(

Will someone please point me to the tutorial posted by Lostn51 (who started this thread) about cleaning and preserving a vintage Singer 128 Lavincendora? I think it was in several parts. My little cutie is apart, and I'd like to get it back together! THX.

Awesome story! Thanks for sharing that.
Oh what machines those must have been...

I am kinda in the same boat, my uncle saw himself as a "modern" kind of person so when faced with a choice of rebuilding/restoring my grandparents 100+ year old house or building new on the property, he talked my Granddad into signing the property over, used his credit to finance building a new house, then burned down the old one (after taking every old thing to the dump)... never quite found my way to acceptance of that.

It is interesting to note the number of folks here who have said that a relative tossed a family heirloom and triggered the collection bug, or a variant of that.

It has been deleted for that very reason. He was having people dis-assemble their machines just to clean them. They when they couldn't get them back together he was having them send him the machine, charging an arm and a leg and maybe they got the machine back and maybe not. This is a can of worms I would NOT like to see opened again. I don't know how much you can find in this manual: http://www.tfsr.org/publications/tec...achine_manual/ You may need to get a second machine you can look at to figure out how to get it back together. There are some blogs you might be able to look at to see what you have to do to get it back together.
http://vssmb.blogspot.com/ is a good blog http://mysewingmachineaddiction.blog...m_medium=email utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MySewingMachineAddiction+%28M y+Sewing+Machine+Addiction%29 another blog sometimes you can dig things up on line. Keep looking.

Thanks for the response. Would have liked the tutorial -- just because it is the process used to take my machine apart, so would be easy to follow the reverse order to put it back together. I'll read all the 43,750 posts on this thead and see if there might be a hint or two. I also took some pictures as I was doing the dismantle, but do wish I had kept a step-by-step list. I just never thought that the tutorial would disappear. My bad ....

Thanks for your kind words, Miriam, Susan, and Steve; you're great. It's been a journey, this sewing machine interest, both literally (in the car picking up machines) and in my mind and heart.

Steve, I'm not surprised others have had a similar experience. They're like musical instruments: each is slightly different, especially in how they've been treated. It's no wonder people anthropomorphize them.

Billy NEVER did finish that tutorial. He NEVER showed anywhere how to get it back together. He only showed how to take it apart. Taking it apart is easy. Getting it back together is a lot more work. Besides nobody would have needed to send their machines to him to put back together for a small fee plus shipping both ways plus his labor. The blog (my sewing machine addiction) link I sent you is the only one I know of that shows how to get a machine back together. I wish you well. You may have a parts machine and a door stop at worst. In the future if you dis-assemble something take lots of pictures as you go along and be very comfortable with the concept of a parts machine if all else fails.