Throw away a working machine?
01-20-2021, 10:48 AM
#11
Member
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Green Bay, WI
Posts: 34
This re-homing discussion is very timely, at least for me.
First, we who have too many machines have got to be coldly realistic, and suern3 is being very tactful about "may not be a 'working machine'. I agree, too, that it may not be a good candidate for donation.
If it were in all senses a "working machine" it wouldn't be a quandary: it could go to a thrift shop, freecycle, or free on craiglist or the curb.
This is more of a 'working' machine. Sometimes we keep them because of guilt, its potential, or many other indirect reasons (kind of like, unfortunately, some relationships that have gone on too long -- more trouble to dump than save or vice versa).
Here in northern Wisconsin, we put stuff like that on the curb with a sign that says 'free' taped on. I've seen old large screen tvs, bikes, microwaves, quite big pieces of furniture, and a variety of interesting things on curbs. All issues then get transfered to the person who picks it up and they never come back to complain. I've done it, with broken trim pieces duct taped on, or some other indication of flawed, but livable.
If you want to keep the table, though, I'd take the machine out -- it's just a husk of what started out as an ok machine that has operated for longer than designed and fixed very creatively -- and dispose. It will feel cathartic. Last year, I got a former Husq 6000 -- former because you could hear from the box it was in a zillion fragments. I took off what I could, dumped the base into our city-supplied Packer trash kiosk and shook the viking dust into the trash. It didn't feel sad, like I thought it would, it felt liberating!
In this case, even getting a repair estimate, because of the table, may not be free, either in money to the shop, or time to you, because of the effort to haul it to a repair shop and then back. It sounds as if you'd put a hundred bucks into it to get -- a hundred dollar machine.
If you've gotten your money's worth -- let it go.
(Disclaimer: I have several [hoarder-speak for more than three] sewing machines and sergers to re-home myself. Some in perfectly ok condition but with assorted neurotic roadblocks to sloughing them off. I,e., I should talk!)
First, we who have too many machines have got to be coldly realistic, and suern3 is being very tactful about "may not be a 'working machine'. I agree, too, that it may not be a good candidate for donation.
If it were in all senses a "working machine" it wouldn't be a quandary: it could go to a thrift shop, freecycle, or free on craiglist or the curb.
This is more of a 'working' machine. Sometimes we keep them because of guilt, its potential, or many other indirect reasons (kind of like, unfortunately, some relationships that have gone on too long -- more trouble to dump than save or vice versa).
Here in northern Wisconsin, we put stuff like that on the curb with a sign that says 'free' taped on. I've seen old large screen tvs, bikes, microwaves, quite big pieces of furniture, and a variety of interesting things on curbs. All issues then get transfered to the person who picks it up and they never come back to complain. I've done it, with broken trim pieces duct taped on, or some other indication of flawed, but livable.
If you want to keep the table, though, I'd take the machine out -- it's just a husk of what started out as an ok machine that has operated for longer than designed and fixed very creatively -- and dispose. It will feel cathartic. Last year, I got a former Husq 6000 -- former because you could hear from the box it was in a zillion fragments. I took off what I could, dumped the base into our city-supplied Packer trash kiosk and shook the viking dust into the trash. It didn't feel sad, like I thought it would, it felt liberating!
In this case, even getting a repair estimate, because of the table, may not be free, either in money to the shop, or time to you, because of the effort to haul it to a repair shop and then back. It sounds as if you'd put a hundred bucks into it to get -- a hundred dollar machine.
If you've gotten your money's worth -- let it go.
(Disclaimer: I have several [hoarder-speak for more than three] sewing machines and sergers to re-home myself. Some in perfectly ok condition but with assorted neurotic roadblocks to sloughing them off. I,e., I should talk!)
