amuckart

Can anyone ID this machine for me? It looks vaguely 123-esque in shape but I'm not sure qhat exactly it is. It may even be a simple domestic model, I can't get a sense of the scale from the photo. Thanks.

Hi Ray, This probably doesn't help but in a decade and more of doing 14th century reenactment and research, I've never seen a belt made like that. The only time I've seen belts interwoven like you describe is in the complex scabbard suspensions of the 13th century. There was no general shortage of long lengths of leather in medieval times; there are plenty of extant examples of long straps and hundreds of iconographical ones. It's possible that what you were seeing was a poor representation of metal mounts on a leather belt. It wasn't uncommon for belts in 14thC Europe to have metal stiffeners and decorative mounts on them.

Hi Franck, You are welcome. I have emailed you the manual. Needles for this machine have not been made for a long time and are very difficult to find. I'm afraid I don't know where to get any right now. They are more common in Europe though, so ebay or old shoe repair shops may have some. They cost a lot though - 8 Euro or more per needle is not uncommon.

Welcome to the forums. I assume you have a needle for the machine and need to know how to thread it? The machine is very simple to operate. The large handle on top is used to make it stitch and the small silver handle on the side raises and lowers the presser foot. The first thing you have to do is to firmly bolt the machine to a table, or to a piece of wood you can clamp to a table. The operating lever needs to be pulled and pushed quite firmly and this is impossible unless the machine is held down. I have manuals for the machine, and I have sent you a message to email me so I can send them to you.

I'd have done the same, and probably a damn sight less politely than you did. If there's someone else in the region who lacks the skill to do things right, then it sounds to me like they deserve each other.

Hi Rebekah, What have you done to clean it so far? The big risk with cleaning machines in this state is that anything which will lift the crud on them will also destroy the decals. If they've been painted over then anything that'll lift the paint will probably trash them, if the paint hasn't already. The fact that you've managed to uncover some of them suggests to me that it may not be paint over the top. Something I've found with machines of this age is that it's difficult to tell the difference between dirty paint and 100 year old oil deposits that have turned into black cruddy varnish over time. If the decals have actually been painted over, then they're most likely toast. That doesn't mean you can't get a good looking well working machine, just that it won't have original decals. There's also no guarantee how intact the decals are at this stage. It's much easier to clean these things up when they're in pieces, so if you're comfortable with taking a machine to bits and reassembling it again I'd go that route. Digital cameras are invaluable here. When I'm working on an unfamiliar or complex machine I take a photo of every change I make, and each screw, pin, or small part that gets removed is put in a hole in an index card and labelled so I can get it back together again. This also lets you look at parts that might be worn. Before you get too far into restoring the machine it's probably worth getting it to the point of making sure it actually sews well enough to be worth it. Machines of this age can work beautifully, but others can be just plain worn out. As soon as I've figured out what's wrong with my website I'll have a few PDFs on there showing how to get the major bits of the head apart. To clean the bare metal parts a solution of 1:20 concentrated citrus cleaner to water in a bucket works well. Put the parts in and let them soak for a couple of hours. For really stubborn dried grease 24 hours should shift it. Scrub with a stiff nailbrush or toothbrush to get the stubborn bits off then dry thoroughly (pat dry and use a hairdryer) and spray with WD40 to stop them rusting before you reassemble the machine. I'd do this at least for the parts in the front of the head and the gears and shuttle carrier at the end of the arm. For the shafts etc inside the machine a few cans of brake & parts cleaner will shift the worst of the gunk. If you can get it, re-lubricate with CRC Syntex once the cleaner has evaporated. During reassembly I lubricate all of the screws with a non-drying long-term lubricant. Personally I use CRC Lanocote, but any non-detergent, non-drying oil will work. This just makes future disassembly much much easier because it prevents the screws from seizing up. For the base, which has no decals, if you want to get it really pretty then get it soda blasted back to bare metal (soda-blasting, unlike shot or sandblasting won't damage or re-profile the iron) then degrease, prime, and paint it with automotive spraypaints. Otherwise disassembling it and scrubbing it with citrus cleaner before thoroughly drying and reassembling will do the trick. If it turns out the decals are toast, you could also do the same to the head of the machine, or just clean it and use it. If you need parts then talk to Bob Kovar at Toledo Industrial. He seems to be the go-to guy for bits for machines like this.

If it uses 331LR needles, then buy up what you can when you find 'em. The 230s are made intermittently but none of the other sizes are any more and they're way expensive. I wouldn't run Nylon through this. Bonded poly would probably work since it doesn't stretch, but synthetic threads will tend to wear the thread path much faster than linen will. Some people just dunk the whole spool in silicone lube when they're running with synthetic thread. I fill the wax pot with neatsfoot oil when I'm running linen thread, but I haven't done much with this size of machine yet. Sellari's liquid wax is the other option. The pricker feet act like an overstitch wheel, but on the #6 at least you could also get flat feet. I have a set of pricker feet for my A1, but I really want a set of pricker feet for my #6es.

The other thing you can do if you're using a leather belt is get it moving and rub a chunk of rosin on the inside of the belt. If the head is stiff though that could be part of the reason. It's a much smaller scale I know, but I have a 201k which had exactly the same problem, the belt was plenty tight but it still slipped and the machine was heavy to turn over. It wasn't until I got *all* the old oil and grease out of it and re-lubed it with syntex that it started running well. Now it runs like a dream with very little pressure on the pedal. Something I've found quite effective for cleaning out machines that have been sitting for a while is brake and parts cleaner. It's not great on any paintwork that you care a lot about but if you're willing to throw a few cans of the stuff at the problem it'll get darn near anything moving again without having to strip the whole machine.

If you're going to put a motor on it the only thing I'd say is please make sure it's reversible, and don't throw the pedals away! It'll probably outlast you and the next person might want to treadle it, and complete stands always seem to hold their value better. Bob's dead on, you might just need a new belt. If it's a round leather belt McMaster Carr sell Urethane belt that makes an excellent replacement. It's slightly tacky but very flexible. I use it on all my treadles now. Search the site for "Urethane Round Belting" and you'll find it. It's hollow and joined with little aluminium joiners that you need to purchase separately.

I think that person's selling them for AU$295.

Fibre-wise hemp and linen are basically indistinguishable once they're processed. You treat them exactly the same in use. The real trick is finding good long-staple versions of either these days, since most are processed on cotton machinery that cuts the staple down to a few inches at best. You can get old-stock hemp thread occasionally but I've found it's a bit weak (I can break 7-strand while hand sewing if I'm not careful).

Hi Suem, I have a page with a little information on this class of machine here: http://alasdair.muck...singerpatchers/ At the bottom of the page are some documents written by a chap by the name of Ken Jerrems who originally posted them on Needlebar but gave me permission to host them once they became unavailable from there. He has a pretty good set of diagrams and explanation of how the heads of these machines work. The one thing I would say about stripping a machine like this is get a good set of proper pin punches they make life much easier and will save you marring the head trying to get pins out with something improvised.

A friend pointed me at this today I think it looks like someone in China got their hands on an 1800s Bradbury or something and tried to reproduce it. Has anyone ever seen one in the wild?

I had exactly the same problem until I got used to the traditional solution used by shoemakers. Inseaming thread gets pulled really tight and shoemakers use a combination of a thumbstall, which is a little tube of leather that goes over the thumb of your awl hand, a hand leather which is a tube of leather sized to go over the palm of your off hand with a hole in it for the thumb, and awl handles that have a 'capstan' end the thread can be wound around. This is slightly difficult to explain without recourse to pictures I don't have right now, but the technique is to put the off-hand bristle through first, then the awl-hand one and pull them through almost all the way. The off-hand thread gets wrapped around the hand leather and pulled and the awl-hand thread between the fingers holding it and the work gets hooked by the back of the thumb over the thumbstall and then hooked by the butt of the awl haft and pulled. The combination of the hook over the thumb and the wrap around the awl haft makes a secure grip. Once you're used to it and it becomes part of the natural rhythm of sewing it's very little effort at all. That may have made no sense whatsoever, but I'll endeavour to dig out my kit, which is still buried post move, and take some pictures.

One other thing I discovered last night is that if you need to raise the bottom roller significantly -- as I do on a splitter I just reassembled -- it's much easier if you remove the top roller and physically lift the bottom roller with your fingers so you can spin the nuts down instead of fiddling around in that cramped space with a spanner.

If the bottom roller is just slipping against the leather part of the problem may be that the blade isn't sharp enough. With my Sørensen splitter I found that what I'd think of as 'very sharp' in knife terms was only just sharp enough and what I needed was scary sharp to get good results. I don't know if you have any experience with woodworking tools but the blade on my splitter is about as sharp as a really sharp smoothing plane. If it won't pop hairs off the back of my arm with the lightest touch and zero slicing motion it's not sharp enough. This is a very good site for learning how to sharpen things to scary sharp, and the jigs he shows are pretty easily adapted to splitter blades.: http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/sharpen.html The Book Of Sharpening by Leonard Lee is also a very worthwhile investment for anyone who works with edged tools. My splitter was in much the same shape as your one when I got it, and I had to clean it out pretty good to get it running well. I also had to lap the flat side of the blade and completely rebuild the edge because the corrosion had done for the fine angle. If there is any patination or the slightest pitting anywhere near the edge of the blade then you won't be able to get it sharp. If the blade is scary sharp then there may not be enough pressure between the rollers. Try taking the blade out and with the thickness set to zero, raise the bottom roller until it's about a paper-thickness away from the top roller then with the thickness set to maximum put the blade back in and adjust the blade carrier until the blade is about a paper thickness away from the top roller, level it all out and give it a go. I've just cleaned up another crank splitter so I'll be setting it up in the next few days. I'll take pictures of my process when I do and post them on the board.

Ray, Are you restoring a book that actually dates from the 14th or 15th century? If you are, are you a specialist restoration bookbinder? Not to diss your skills or anything, but 600 year old books *really* aught to be restored by specialists, preferrably specialists in that particular period of binding. Something else to remember about corn starch, it's a New World thing, corn coming from the Americas and all so if you want something pre 1500 you'll want to be looking at wheat starch or hide glue, whether rabbit, fish, horse, or cattle.

Hi all, This weekend I picked up my second Pearson #6, head only alas, no stand, but it came with not one but two bobbin winders. One of them is a BUSM one, sans wax pot etc but I can't identify the other at all. It fits Pearson bobbins, but the casting quality isn't up with the BUSM one so I'm guessing it was for some other brand of large boat-shuttled machine. There are no makers marks visible on it. Can anyone help me identify it? Overall view of the winder: This is it next to the BUSM one: The space for the bobbin isn't quite the same as the BUSM one, but the #6 bobbins fit fine. This is the hand wheel. Unlike the BUSM winder, the handle is cast iron Thanks.

Nice work. It's always good to see someone else who's been bitten by the old iron bug! I'm hella jealous of your 31-15, they don't show up in that condition often, let alone with an industrial treadle table. I really want one of those industrial treadle stands to put my 45k on. I'll just have to console myself with the fact that my 1877 UFA is the oldest singer patcher I know of

I have a fair bit of experience with the buttonholer attachments for the straight-stitch singers, and I seriously doubt you'll get one to sew buttonholes even in garment leather. Most of them will barely sew a presentable buttonhole in fabric, let alone anything stickier. I have one that works fairly well in some fabrics, but it's one of 6-10 I have and it only plays nicely with my 201-1. The rest are curiosities, and basically useless for sewing. These attachments do move the material so ideally you need a machine that you can drop the feed dogs on to make these work (the 201 does). for other machines there was a little plate you could put over the feed dogs to make the attachments work. Frankly these attachments were an attempt to bring straight-stitch machines into competition with the (then) newfangled zig-zag machines, but they never worked all that well as far as I know. Have you tried getting a modern machine and feeding a couple of layers of garment leather through it to see if it'll put buttonholes in? Modern machines move the material straight back and forth and move the needle side to side to make the pattern. I don't have access to my one modern machine right now or I'd go try it out but it'll sew through four layers of 14oz canvas without too much trouble, so I doubt a couple of layers of garment leather will pose problems. Your limitation will be what size of 15x1 needle you can find to feed the thread you want. My big question is why do you want to put stitched-in buttonholes in leather? In fabric you need all that stitching to stop the fabric unravelling, but in leather you don't have that problem so you'd be better off with a different edge treatment anyway, surely?

If you find this information, can you share? I'd give my eye teeth for a comprehensive catalogue of Singer screw specifications. Cheers.

(delurking after a few months off the board)Wiz is right about the other parts being for shoe repair but FWIW they're not lasts. Lasts are forms of the inside of a shoe that the shoe is originally made on and are plastic or wood. I'd call those repair anvils. They're used for putting inside a shoe you're resoling and either hammering down a glued-on sole or to just hold the shoe while you work on it. If I were local I'd buy 'em off you because it's a slightly more complete set than I have, but I wouldn't pay more than about US$40 for all of them.

Hi Ray, Try and get hold of Edwin Hale at Hale & Co. http://haleandco.com/ he's got new old stock Barnsley awls in all sorts of sizes and can probably sort you out. I got some fine heel awls from him a while ago. That said, by far the nicest awl I've ever used was made by Dick Anderson at Thornapple River Boots, http://www.thornappleriverboots.com/ he's a real gentleman and a fine craftsman. His website is out of date and doesn't reflect his current prices or stock, but if you send him a picture he can make pretty much any sort of awl you want.

The #6 should handle the lighter stuff, but the problem you'll probably have is finding smaller gauges of needle for it. As far as I'm aware, the #230 is the only vaguely easily available size. The Junker & Ruh has the same issue - needles for it are a bugger to find. It's also quite limited in its throat depth. If you want something for fine work, try and get a smaller cylinder bed machine like a Singer 45k.