Newbie Needing Restoration Advice Singer 29-4

[SewShine]

I'm a newbie, and have much appreciated reading through the archives. I aquired an old Singer 29-4 that I would like to restore. It is functional, but has rust in several places. Someone painted it black at some point. I started cleaning it, and revealed the old decals, but not fully. I'm afraid I'll lose them trying to restore...which is ok. I mostly want to have it look nice and run properly.

Thank you so much for any advice you can give!

Rebekah

[SewShine]

[CustomDoug]

Congrats on the new aquisition, these machines a wonderful. I'm sure someone will give true restoration advice but if that was mine, I'd saturate the treadle base stand and table down with WD40, and "clean' the head itself with sewing machine oil. The oil will not destroy the decals. Wipe off the excess with paper towels after being allowed to sit for a good long while to soak in. I just did a cosmetic restoration on a singer 31-15 which included a re-paint but I wouldn't go there without atleast giving the above a try... you might be surprised at how well it turns out, and there is something to be said for the patina that you see on the old ones. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

[CowboyBob]

I've seen alot worse,the main thing to do is oil every spot on the whole head that needs oil.The minor rust you have can be steel wooled.

Great Find!

[amuckart]

Hi Rebekah,

I'm a newbie, and have much appreciated reading through the archives. I aquired an old Singer 29-4 that I would like to restore. It is functional, but has rust in several places. Someone painted it black at some point. I started cleaning it, and revealed the old decals, but not fully. I'm afraid I'll lose them trying to restore...which is ok. I mostly want to have it look nice and run properly.

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.