KLO

This has probably been discussed before but I am wondering about temperatures, high and low, in which machines are stored. Is there a sort of upper/lower limit in which a mechanical machine should not go over/under? I was thinking high heats might be worse than low colds but I may be wrong? Surely moisture of any kind is an absolute negative for storage. I know that some of you have found machines in all kinds of places and some of you cannot even get all the machines you own into your climate controlled houses so wondered what you do about that? Do you cover them with quilts or similar coverings or just hope for the best as they sit in a cold/hot garage or outbuilding?

And on a secondary road from that thought, how about computerized machine storage temps. Are there minimum/maximum temps for those too? Would any of you vintage machine people have an idea about that? I think the cold weather here in the east has me wondering what I should set my heating/cooling unit on in my outbuilding studio.

Thanks for any input you can offer.

Sunflowerzz

Not sure but we have a cargo trailer and it gets 29 or so here in the winter and up to 120 in summer. So far they all seem fine, they are way off the ground and on a wood floor. I was told setting them down on concrete floors are the worst. I also know from experience that machines in cases fair better than those in tables in barns and sheds.

miriam

You want the machines to stay about the same temp - going between cold & hot & hot & cold they can sweat and ruin the finish and the sweat can make rust - my good machines are stored inside - I have some parts machines in the garage but nothing that will ever work again...

Rodney

the ones in cases probably do better because they are enclosed. Changes happen more slowly inside the case. The hot/cold cycles are more gradual, less extreme than if the machine was open to the surrounding air. Dust plays a role in how fast a machine will rust too. The dust attracts moisture.
Rodney

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some of the pic's I post were taken with in an hour of removing machines from a old Mobil home. where they had sat since about 2002, in there cases. There are 15 clones so there enamel baked finish and no shellac, so there finish has survived nicely . but in the photo you can see they are soaken wet, some of the cases are rotten and all stink to hi heaven.

there were sitting on 70's shag carpet, one bare machine was on new paper, that machine was the worst of all, paper rusted to the metal.

The singers 50's vintage and shellac. these the shellac was wrinkling and turning to dust. dirty looking stuff. again the 50's machine by singer are also enamel baked, so the black is fine, but the metal was starting to rust.

by the time I took this photo a lot of the moister had evaporated around the spool pin is water. every machine on the floor and sitting up onto of cabinet but in fabric covered cases looked like this, machines in cabinets not enclosed were dry

machines in cases with loose tops were also wet. machines sitting open no case at all were dry. even ones in plastic cases were wet. but not as wet as the fabric covered cases.

as far as hot vs cold any machinery I can think of. hot climate fairs much better than machinery from a cold climate

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and don't store these with fabric under the presser foot, unless you want a rusty foot and feed dogs.

we don't plan on dying between the time there put away and the next use, But we do.

ThayerRags

When I think about the climate inside of old ranch houses back years ago, I’d say that everything in the house, sewing machines included, went through hot and cold temperatures on a regular basis. I remember when staying with my Grandma in the mountains of Colorado during the winter as a kid, of her stoking up the Warm Morning coal stove in the living room when we went to bed, and how cold the house was the next morning when we woke up. It went from hot with a banked-up stove at night, to colder than heck with a few glowing cinders by morning, every day, all winter long, every winter.

On the hot side, she didn’t even have indoor plumbing, much less air conditioning when it got hot in the summer. Whatever the outside temperature was, it was about the same in the house.

I don’t think hot and cold matter as much to sewing machine finishes as moisture does, but I could be wrong. I store my machines in non-climate-controlled areas here in Oklahoma, and haven’t noticed any problems with the finish crackling on any machines that weren’t already that way. I just make an effort to keep them dry.

And from my experience, having a piece of cloth under the presser foot to “protect the feed dogs”, or leaving a threaded bobbin or the upper tension threaded during storage will cause problems before hot or cold temperatures. The fabric and thread hold moisture from the air, and promote rust.

CD in Oklahoma

Glenn

I think it is the fluctuation of the hot and cold that is the problem with the sewing machines and the moisture is a very big problem. Although heat is the worst it can melt the shellac and then when it gets cold again the shellac will crack and turn cloudy form the humidity.

ThayerRags

A couple of things that I might add to this discussion just to throw them out, and not directed at anyone specific:

When we put a seized-up machine in a bag and set it in a car in hot temperatures, or hit it with a hot hair dryer, while limbering up the stuck lubricants are we ruining the finish?

If the non-climate-controlled garage or shed is the only place that you have to store a machine, won’t it fair better than buried in a sanitary landfill?

CD in Oklahoma

miriam

CD you are right.
The best thing for the old machines is to keep them in use.