amuckart

Hi all, I've finally picked up my #6, serial number 7536. There are pictures online at: http://picasaweb.goo...sMachineNo7536# On first inspection she's filthy, but doesn't appear badly worn. I want to restore it and I'm wondering if anyone has advice on what sort of things to look out for with these machines. I'm relatively confident I can systematically strip it and reassemble it without losing track of the parts, but I'm interested to know what pitfalls there are with these machines and what the major wear points are etc. It's missing the wax pot off the top. The guy I bought it from swears blind he has it somewhere, but I'm not holding my breath. I can jury-rig something to serve the purpose, but I'd like to know what I should expect to have to pay for a replacement. Has anyone repainted the fancy hand wheels? What sort of paints are best to replicate the original look? Also, I'd really like to know where to get a set of sockets to fit the square-drive bolts the machine uses. My A1 restoration is currently stalled by my not having the correct tool to remove the recessed square-drive bolts in the head. Many thanks.

G'day Jim, That's good to know, thank you. I'll give this machine a pass. It's funny, I get a lot of comments from people who hear I'm rebuilding a 45k who say that they were great machines and I'll really enjoy working on it when it's done, and I think they're right. Sadly I suspect that people like that are few and far between in the western world these days. There don't seem to be many folk any more who follow their parents into manual trades, let alone their grandparents, but wow, four generations of people all trained on the same machine really says something about the strength of the industry in their time, and the longevity of the 45k machines. I'd love to see pictures if you have any. My A1 head and frame are off to get soda blasted next week so any pictures of the original livery would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for sharing those. When do they date from?

Thanks Bob, much appreciated. The auction had it listed as a "33k3" which would explain why I couldn't find any information on it. Speed isn't an issue for me so it doesn't look like it'll do anything my 45k won't, assuming I can ever get my 45k actually working. Currently it's providing me with a great education on rebuilding machines (and making me wish I had the cash to order a CowBoy from Jim over on Oz) but learning experiences are good, right?

Hi all, I've come across an auction for a Singer 33k3. It's a roller foot drop-feed machine that looks like it's bigger than a 45 but smaller than a 97 (ok, so that's a pretty big range I admit). Stylistically it looks more like a 97 than a 45 though. I can't find anything about these machines on the 'net. Does anyone have any information on them? Cheers.

Thanks Steve. I've remembered I have a stack of old domestic double-fold binder shells I can probably retrofit, so we'll see how that goes. Do you think US$600 is a fair price for a machine like this in good condition? Cheers.

Thanks Steve. I went and had a play with the Seiko tonight and I think I'll buy it. The bobbin is a bit tetchy, but I've got my 45k for bigger jobs (once I put it back together) and the machine seemed in good nick and ran smoothly. Now I'll need to get some smaller binder shells for it since the smallest one he had was 3/4". Any idea where I can find them? Parts cost is a bit of a concern for the Adler, but they seem to have a good reputation. Thanks.

Hi all, I'm looking at a couple of machines for medium-weight work. One is a cylinder arm Seiko LSC-8BV compound-feed cylinder arm machine with a synchronized binder, and the other is an Adler flat-bed compound feed machine. I'm interested in these for both light-medium weight leather work, cuffs, wallets, belts and the like, and for doing canvas work on up to 8 layers of 12oz canvas. I'm interested in people's opinions of them, availability of parts & feet etc. The Seiko is set up as a binder, which is useful for some of what I'd like to do with it, but I'm also interested in using it without that so I'm wondering how easy they are to remove, or at least get out of the way if I want to sew things without binding them. Neither are particularly new, but I don't know how old. The asking price for the Seiko is about NZ$900 and the Adler is starting at NZ$500, but may well go for more than that. Thanks.

You are right, that's absolutely the right way to do a permanent fix. Weld & grind is how I'd do that fix too. Ken's document is still useful in that it explains the failure modes, and ways to at least work around them for people without access to welding/brazing kit though.

Wiz is, as usual, spot on with is explanation for the likely cause of your 19-4's problem. Some time ago a bloke by the name of Ken Jerrems wrote a document detailing how he went about correcting this exact problem on a 19k13. The doc was originally posted on the needlebar.org website, but after finding it on google but not being able to get to the actual doc with the lockdown needlebar.org has seen, I made contact with Ken and asked for a copy, which he kindly emailed me. I haven't yet seen a better explanation of the working of these machines, or how to shim up the common wear points in them, than that document and after reading it, I got his permission to put it on my website - along with the A4 PDF engineering drawings he made of the shims and parts he manufactured to get his machine going. It is linked from the bottom of this page: http://alasdair.muck...singerpatchers/ Enjoy.

I don't think it's fair to judge the entire population of 29ks on one experience. Remember that these machines are getting on a bit now, it's been decades since they were made and many of them have had hard working lives and can be very worn. How well any individual one works today depends entirely on what sort of work it's seen in the past and it's a bit of a lottery when you buy one. I think if you buy any machine this age, but particularly a machine as fiddly and sensitive as a patcher, you have to be prepared to strip it, examine all the parts for wear, go after it with a pair of calipers if necsessary and replace or shim the worn parts before it can be expected to work again. This means you have to be, or be willing to become, a sewing machine mechanic to at least some degree. These machines did good work when they were new, and unless they're terminally worn in irreplaceable parts there's no reason they can't be made to do good work again. It's all a question of whether or not it's worth it to you. Given what good patchers cost new these days, I think it probably is for hobbyists or very small-time producers, but professionals should go buy a new Claes and have the luxury of not having to worry about it again.

Hi Barra, That's the stuff I use for shoes too. I got several 48-ball boxes of 1940s era "Acadia" brand #10 hemp from a guy on ebay a couple of years ago. It takes wax really well but it's a little weak for fine closing. I use 3 strands of it for round closing and I can break it pretty easily if I'm not careful. Not so much with the 7-9 strands I use for inseaming. D.W over on the Crispin Colloquy uses unwaxed Teklon for inseaming his boots. He un-plies it and tapers the ends with a knife, waxes it and puts a bristle on just like you'd do with linen or hemp. I'm going to get some and give it a go. It's got a lot of advantages over hemp for anything but reproduction or restoration work. It's getting near impossible to get real long-staple linen any more. It's all processed on machinery geared for short-staple fibres like cotton. There's no functional difference between linen and hemp. Once they're processed it's almost impossible to tell the difference between them, even with serious microscopes.

Hi barra, Can you elaborate on what you mean by "common hemp thread"? If you're rolling your own I presume it is something like the un-plied dry spun stuff I use for shoes, but I've never heard that term before. Cheers.

If you've got all the bits they can be brazed back together again even though it's cast iron, but you need to find someone who really knows what they're doing who can preheat the part and cool it real slow after the work is done to stop it cracking. Expect to lose all the paint if you go that route. Do you have pictures of the damage?

Thanks for that. Sounds like a useful, if fiddly solution. I'll order some 328 needles in sizes for my A1 as well as my 45k then. Cheers.

Hi all, I could have sworn I've asked this before, but I can't find it in a search so apologies if this is a dupe. I'm looking for someone who has, or had, a Pearson & Bennion/BUSM A1 machine working who can tell me what type of needles they used in it. My one came with a tin of needles and going through them I realised they're very similar to the needles for my 45k which uses 214x2/328 class needles. I've only noticed this now because it's only very recently that I've got my 45k to the point of paying attention to the needles it uses, and the A1 has been sitting there waiting for me to get an imperial eight-point socket to finish taking it apart. The old needles that came with the A1 are not quite identical to 328s, the distance from the butt to the eye is very slightly different, but I don't have any of the old ones exactly the same size as the 328s I've got so I'm not sure if this is a normal variation in different sizes of the same class of needle. There were a couple of new needles in the tin too, one of which is definitely a 328 though, which makes me hopeful. Anyway, if there's anyone out there who still has one of these ancient machines working, or who did have and can remember what class of needle they take I'd really appreciate knowing if I can use 328 needles in it. Cheers.

Really? Either clones can be had way cheaper or it's vastly more complex a change than I thought, or are you talking about paying a mechanic to do it for me? Most of the point of the exercise for me right now is to figure out how to do it seeing as I've realised that I have to take the machine completely apart anyway to re-drill and tap the screws that hold the big-round-bit-I-don't-know-the-name-of[1] onto the drive shaft because right now they're stripped and the timing only stays right for about 2 stitches. Of course, I can probably figure out how reverse works by taking one of my wife's 66ks apart, since they have fundamentally the same mechanism, but that might not be a long-term survival strategy . Cheers. [1] round bit in front of the head, attached to the front end of the top drive shaft, that the needle bar con-rod connects to and that actuates the thread take-up lever.

Thanks Wiz. I figured there wasn't much I could do to actually damage the machine so I had a go and I see what you mean. The shuttle hook picks up the thread but the timing of the takeup arm is all wrong when the machine is running backwards. Looking at the mechanism though I'm now wondering how difficult it is to convert one of these old machines so it will feed in reverse. It looks like a matter of being able to push the pivoting axle for the stitch length adjuster in the head past bottom dead centre, and if I do this with no needle in the machine and the needle plate removed the feed dogs do feed backwards while the rest of the machine runs forwards. I'm guessing it's not actually that simple and I'm missing something because if it were that simple to make them feed in reverse, why didn't they come from the factory with the capability? Can anyone set me straight? Is it actually a fairly simple modification, or do lots of bits need changing to add reverse to a machine like a 45k? If it is simple, I'd like to give it a go. Cheers.

Hi all, I've got a Singer 45k25 that I finally got mounted up and running yesterday. The manual for the machine says not to run it in reverse, and only to turn the hand wheel towards the operator, but watching the action of the hook with the foot up and no thread I can't see why it wouldn't build stitches running backwards as well as forwards. Am I missing something? Is it actually bad for the machines/needles to run them backwards? Cheers.

Thank you. I made a pattern for the main panels. I drew it up in inkscape where I could play with all the curves to get them looking right and then tweaked it so a single page of A4 would give me half of all the main parts. I didn't pattern the welt or the pouchlets on the front. The pattern shape for those is pretty head-bending and I generated it by tacking bits in place and easing in the rest until it looked right then trimming off the excess.

I realise this question is going to expose the vast amount I don't know about sewing machinery, but I'm hoping the old adage that the only dumb question is an unasked one isn't about to get disproven Art mentioned in the thread on the Singer 97 that machines can be modified to take a modern needle system. I figure this isn't trivial, but given how difficult 331 system needles are to get hold of I'm wondering what the feasability of getting a Pearson #6 machine using something more readily available is? I have a handful of needles for the Pearson I'm working on, but they're getting pretty pricey and given how long I expect the machine to last, the limited supply of 331LR needles seems like it'll be the death of the machine long before it wears out which bugs me. To stave off the inevitable comments, I know I could get a 441 clone and have something that'll do the same job with modern needles etc, but part of the reason I want a running #6 is the same reason I have an A1 in parts waiting to be refinished, and a 120+ year old patcher I'm rebuilding. I just like old machines, especially human powered ones. If I were leatherworking professionally you can bet I'd have something modern but I'm doing this as a hobby and rebuilding the machines is half the fun. Cheers.

Are these feet compatible with Singer 45k feet? I have a roller foot on my 45k but it's been broken and welded at some point in the past and isn't quite on-line. Cheers.

Fantastic. I'll drop you an email. Cheers.

Is that what you use from the motor to the head? I'm looking for the internal belts that drive the upper feed. They're fairly thin flat belts. The under one is about 1/2" and the upper one is about 1/4" wide