Darren Brosowski

In Australia a dealer selling a used machine must has to warrant that the machine is "fit and proper for the purpose for which it is sold" and here the customer would have the right to demand full refund or replacement. Mistakes happen and things can go wrong - that is life - but in this case reconditioned appears to mean that they put a new needle in it........

I like to think of owning a sewing machine in terms of owning a car. Learning to use it is equivalent to learning to drive. Cleaning and oiling is equivalent to washing and polishing a car Changing needles and knowing when to change a needle is the same as car tyres. Timing and minor adjustment is comparable to changing oil and oil filter in a car - very simple when clearly explained. As with cars some owners are happy to pay someone else to do everything for them. I tend to find that the people who have the least problems are the ones who want to understand how and why the machine works. I know it sounds silly but sewing machines "talk" to you - when things are not quite right they start to sound different - and the experienced user will start to sense when something is not quite right and find the problem before it becomes expensive.

Agree with Uwe about the marking!!!!! Some marking is a given but learning to set your machine up - and many others have given some good tips on this - is up to the operator. Hand sewing v machine sewing is a compromise. Different types of machine are a compromise. Different threads are a compromise. Even stitch length is a compromise between appearance and speed. There is no such thing as "perfect" so you need to find a balance between what you want/need/money and by talking to the dealers you can make an informed choice. Take a piece of your work to one of the dealers and they are going to be more than happy to show you how to use the machine doing that job. These are top end sewing machines and anyone in sales worth their salt will be more than willing to help

Looking at those pictures all I see is oil residue not rust.

Depends; If it is a walking foot then NO and why would you want to? If it is a straight sewer then a simple matter of screwing on the roller foot although changing the feed dog and needle plate to a single row type may be an idea.

LOL Eric Apart from the /32's issue you just gave away every sewing mechanics secrets.

A great example is the Singer model 15 domestic. Original production was the long beak shuttle as used in the 17/18 class but the later version with a bobbin case with a "finger" (similar to the 31 bobbin case) was stolen from the Germans!!!! I prefer to think of it all as design fusion between companies.

The movie is from after the time that they went to the arsenal system The machine production is obviously after the introduction of the arsenal system as prior to that they could not punch through those sorts of numbers!! Needles are a precision art

Interesting!!! Do you have any idea of the age of your machine? Normally the "B" was used for Japanese built machines - U was a different factory - and as far as I know they are all built by Seiko. Consew IS Seiko and for all of the machines I know of they changed the numbering system when Singer went kaput. To your question. 29 bobbins are made in China and Taiwan with a small possibility that some come out of Japan - Bob Kovar or others may know more about that - but stay away from the Chinese bobbins as they are often pretty rough. Buy from a supplier who will back the product!! Taiwanese large 29k bobbins 20.05mm dia 7.64 thick 5.75 bore They are the stock I have now but next batch might vary

I have sold a couple of versions of the GB6 class and while there is difference between the GB6-180/181/182 and the various sub classes I find the easiest way to describe them is as a modernised version of the Singer 7 class. The 1010/GB6-180-2 is like a lot of machines and is an amalgam of "off the shelf" parts - not that this is a bad thing. So, it is something like a Singer 7B top end, 441 bits in the bottom to create something very similar to the Japanese built Tailor TG-360 which was essentially a modified Singer 11 class? Does that clear things up? If so then please explain it to me as I lost the plot around about 441

When having problems with a machine I suggest leaving an offering for the sewing machine fairies and walking away. Not sure if the offering to the fairies works or if consuming the piece of cake and 6 pack just relaxes you to the point where you figure out that the operator was just over stressed and trying too hard.

In the 50's, 60's and 70's Singer dealers were encouraged to take trades of old machines. Unfortunately the instruction was to smash them up! A few years back I heard of over 100 machines - mostly singers - from a closed down factory that were supposedly in storage in another old building. I raced down there that day but they had been scrapped a few months before. Most were boring straight sewers but there were quite a few Conelli and Singer 114 free motion embroidery machines that would have been quite valuable.

A lot changed over that 60 years. In some years Kilbowie made nearly a million machines 1910 was 1,079,624 serial numbers Obviously they did not make that many every year and it was about the factory capacity.

http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/great-diehl-of-invention.html

That is a common and easily understood misconception. Singer was well behind most manufacturers when it came to production as they did not use the "arsenal" system where parts where interchangeable. Every machine was hand fitted, disassembled, body painted and then had the fitted parts put back into the body. Most of their opposition was using "Go/No Go" gauges so that they could fit any part to any body. Where Singer creamed the opposition was in marketing and they pretty much invented Hire Purchase to sell their machines. They had a brilliant Engineer by the name of Phillip Diehl who was the man behind the IF - later known as the Model 15 - who had to fight the board of directors to introduce modern practices. If they had not followed his advice they would never have been able to manufacture machines in the volumes required. A bit more about him here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Diehl_%28inventor%29 "I think one of the reasons Singer is seen as the 'wellspring' is that they perfected the mass production earlier, and produced a reliable, and affordable machine that you could buy on 'tick'. Ok, it would still cost you at least 6 months wages, but less than a number of other machines out there."

Sorry, I generally give a worst case scenario as things are rarely that bad. If the problem is minor then you are going to be happy but if it is major you were prepared for it. Ship it off to someone like Bob Kovar and get an opinion based on the machine itself as we can only speculate.

This is a very, very complex subject and would take a huge amount of research. Unfortunately in many cases the information no longer exists. A good example is the Singer 15 domestic machine where Japanese machines are usually described as a clone the 15 BUT while they are very similar on the outside to the Singer and many internal parts are the same the Japanese took the best of European designs and then added their own features to come up with machines better than what Singer ever built. The Seiko TE is not a clone of the Singer 17 as Seiko built this for Singer in the 1960's. When Singer went belly up the only thing that changed was the badge. There are hundreds of examples and every one is different!!!

At least it isn't on fire............yet.......

This is the sort of story that everyone new to an industrial machine needs to read!!!!! There is so much to learn and I often compare it to learning to drive and maintain a car.

Unfortunately a lot of what China builds is price driven by us - the consumers. The top end product is pretty good and will get better over the next few years. The CB4500 is not yet as good as a Juki 441 but at 1/3rd the price it is 10 times the value. Almost every product fault I have seen in a Chinese sewing machine has been due to poor initial adjustment and lack of oil in critical parts. I have been guilty of this myself with a machine where I missed the fact that the two grub screws that hold the top bushes in place were not tightened during assembly. The customer moved the machine from workshop to another and when he put the (tight) balance wheel back on the bushes moved - shit happens - but it is something I now check on every one of these machines. When it comes to a whole range of consumer products I disagree with how most companies have responded. An example is a quality boot manufacturer in my home town who initially tried to compete with China and then decided to just make the product over there. If I was the marketing manager - and yes I have studied marketing as part of a business degree course - I would have kept making the product here and raised the quality. There is no point fighting to the bottom where there is no profit. Make the best, raise the price and be loud and proud about it. People quickly get sick of cheap rubbish and will go back to a product that they know will last. Obviously there is a huge difference between a $200 pair of boots and a $2000 sewing machine when it comes to putting out the hard earned dollar

Needs to be the right treadle for the machine! The 45k treadle is huge but compared to a 7 it is a toy.

A Chinese 29k hand wheel - if it has the pulley groove - will fit and save the drama of reinventing the wheel. If no pulley groove then it can be machined.

Unfortunately it is always possible that a screw or two will slip loose in shipping. Apart from Locktite on every screw none of us dealers can do anything to prevent it. I just shipped a machine 4000km by road from one side of Australia to the other. It worked perfectly here but played up on arrival. A local mechanic went over the machine and a bunch of things had rattled loose on the trip but he sorted it all out and the customer is now happy.

You mean HHW - His Hot Wife LOL

Firstly I want to make it clear that I am enjoying this debate and no nastiness is intended!!!!! I hope you understand that I love old machines and it is a huge part of my business. It is difficult to compare apples to apples and I used the Pearson as an example as it is equivalent to the CB4500 which seems to be the most popular machine on this forum. Personally I love the 45k25 and I know master saddlers who still use them for the majority of their work despite owning more modern machines. Is the GA5 as well built as well as the 45k? Possibly. Are the materials and heat treatment as good? No, No, No and No!! Will they improve? Yes. Japan built many of the Singer machines from the 1960's and even improved on them but the difference is that they were doing it to Singer specifications so had a great starting point. China is starting from a lower point and in many - not all - cases is reverse engineering machines. The great news is that many Chinese parts fit the Singer 45k so there will be a supply of wear parts for decades to come!! I disagree with you on pricing. As a comparison you only need look at domestic Singer machines where they pretty much invented Hire Purchase so people could afford them. Today a domestic machine is extremely cheap if we compare base models. The same comparative pricing goes for industrial machines.