Singer 111w155 Oil Packing Screw

[Gfei]

Hello all.

I've recently purchased an old singer 111 that needs some TLC and I've run into a question. When i removed the oil packing screw for the arm shaft there was some old crusty wool-ish looking stuff in there, I'm assuming to act as a wick.

I'm not sure what I should replace this with, I don't see any specific reference to it in any of the manuals or parts lists I've gone over. Any advice is appreciated.

By the way, I'm really happy to have found this site. I don't do leather work but the information on vintage machines in here is fantastic.

Thanks

[friquant]

Welcome to the forum!

On my singer 144 I replaced all the wicks I've found with small pieces of polyester felt. I suspect any kind of yarn or absorbent fabric would work. It just needs to hold the oil as a reservoir so the oil can slowly feed the shaft.

[Gfei]

18 minutes ago, friquant said:

Welcome to the forum!

On my singer 144 I replaced all the wicks I've found with small pieces of polyester felt. I suspect any kind of yarn or absorbent fabric would work. It just needs to hold the oil as a reservoir so the oil can slowly feed the shaft.

Thanks for the reply. I kinda figured as much. I've got some time before I need to worry about what to replace it with, I've disassembled the entire upper arm to clean up some rust on the timing belt pulley and feed lift eccentric (that had a broken set screw which was fun to remove).

While it's disassembled I'm gonna give it a new coat of paint, then I'll see how easily it all goes back together.

[friquant]

Would enjoy seeing pictures of the machine in its disassembled state, as well as how you've got the parts laid out for remembering how they go back together. The most I've removed on the singer 144 is removing the needle bar rock frame so I could grind a passage into it for a screwdriver to access the needle bar pinch screws. Everything else I fixed in-place.

[Gfei]

56 minutes ago, friquant said:

Would enjoy seeing pictures of the machine in its disassembled state, as well as how you've got the parts laid out for remembering how they go back together. The most I've removed on the singer 144 is removing the needle bar rock frame so I could grind a passage into it for a screwdriver to access the needle bar pinch screws. Everything else I fixed in-place.

I'll definitely get some pictures. I'm not relying on memory to reassemble, although I've grouped related parts together in containers as I go. I've got a copy of a US Army technical manual with some nice exploded diagrams of all the parts, plus a US Navy guide with pretty detailed disassembly/reassembly instructions.

[AlZilla]

8 hours ago, friquant said:

Welcome to the forum!

On my singer 144 I replaced all the wicks I've found with small pieces of polyester felt. I suspect any kind of yarn or absorbent fabric would work. It just needs to hold the oil as a reservoir so the oil can slowly feed the shaft.

I bought a hundred red spool pin felts pretty cheap from Amazon. I've used pieces cut from them whenever I need a piece of felt for an oil wick. 

And all my machines have beautiful spool pin felts. They really tame that thread spool on little domestics.