White Rotary with reversible motor
 

This machine was a gift from one of my sisters (I think they call it "enabling"). I've seen pictures of them, seen them for sale a lot, but never up close. It wasn't in too bad of shape, except the motor, and cleaned up nicely and sews well. The motor was another story, didn't move at all, but it worked out.

Turns out the motor on this is reversible. I'd wondered about non-sewing machine specific motors before

https://www.quiltingboard.com/vintag...t-t314149.html

And I guess this is another example. The brushes are in opposite ends of the copper tubes marked with the arrow. That tube is one piece and the brushes are opposite each other, and it rotates in the slot. When the marked tube is in the down position it moves the machine correctly, when up it moves the machine incorrectly (I think...). I have no idea how it works electrically speaking. I wonder if the original manual addresses this. I had seen one other picture of a machine with this swing away motor, a Singer 15, but had no idea what it was.

I'm not sure about a manual for one of those, but not all of them were attached to the machine like this one. There are some ads for motors that could be used for different appliances. https://blog.hamiltonbeach.com/celeb...ars-home-motor about half way down the page shows the ads for the different uses. It shows a sewing machine near the front on the right side of the hand wheel. In that case one would have to change the rotation which would depend on if it was for a White (or others that the hand wheel rotated the same direction) or a machine that the hand wheel rotated the same as a Singer.

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.
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Hmmm now I have to go look at one of mine.

running a machine the wrong way can cause lots of thread problems.

Janey, I love the picture, and thanks for finding this. The motor came with it's own stand and sat on the treadle table and turned the machine, looks as though it came with a foot control for that, which looks very much like the foot control with the White machine in my picture. Interesting.