Cool gift. Keep it and use it for the motor and foot control on a machine that needs one. Parts are parts!

Or a door stop. The sucker is heavy.

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*** I would love it - I love improvised items.
*** Bet She or Hubby were tinkerers.
*** Enjoy it - whoever gets it.

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It probably wouldn't take much effort to get the motor to work. Even if you can't use the bobbin winder the motor may help you get another machine running.
Rodney

***
*** I would love it - I love improvised items.
***
*** Bet She or Hubby were tinkerers.
***
*** Enjoy it - whoever gets it.

***

I was right about it, and wrong at the same time. Stopped at my LSMG for Singer top tension parts and asked him about it. He said it is not home made, but is factory made item that can be bought new. He also has the winder assembly for $14.00. So one could make one.
However if you send it to me it will get fixed up and used. We're almost wearing my wife's Sidewinder thingy out.

Joe

Some of the industrial bobbins are a lot bigger than home bobbins. That was somebody's rigged up thing. If your machine has two spool pins you can always wind a bobbin as you sew anyway.

Handi Quilter made a similar animal with a switch instead of a foot control. Sometimes we get them in and just pop the motor brush out, and pop it back in, and it works. It's like the motor brush gets jammed. Maybe it just needs new motor brushes? Someone with a longarm quilter could use it... if it was working.

It's definitely a bobbin winder from an industrial machine- I use a twin bobbin/needle machine every day. The motor is sitting where a friction belt would be to wind the bobbin. Industrial bobbins are bigger (thankfully) and have a larger post hole. Industrial machines wind bobbins while sewing. Woe be to the person who uses my bobbins and doesn't wind more!
It is wasteful to run a machine just to wind a pair of bobbins as the motor doesn't disengage from the head. This would be handy to an industrial seamstress!

I have one like it that came mounted on the table of my longarm quilting machine (Nustyle). It runs off the electric for the machine instead of having its own foot pedal.