Home Made Speed Reducer For Singer 111W113

[jjs111w]

Have newly purchased old Singer 111w113 which has the original 3500 rpm motor that works great but way too fast for me. I am a novice just starting to do sewing work as I want to do a car interior in leather. I have done several car interiors using vinyl on an old White household machine but needed to get a good walking foot at a decent price, hence the 111w113 I found locally.

I viewed several old posts about slowing these machines down and ended drawing from what others have done with speed reduction. Using mostly scrap I had, angle iron, garage door opener bracing, a 5/8" shaft, some old pulleys, etc, I fabricated my not so good looking unit. The only items purchased was the 12" pulley and two 4-bolt pillow block bearing both from eBay. While we just got it working it does make a world of difference, really slows it down and I seem to have better control with the clutch now. We start sewing with it in a few weeks, so time will tell how well it work in real life projects.

Also if you notice in a couple of photos we added a home made foot operated presser foot lifter. The mechanism was on the machine but any actuation was not with the machine when purchased.

Thanks

jjs111w

[cdthayer]

I like to see shop-built solutions like this. Thanks for posting. You really went all-out on the speed reducer, but is the foot-lift made out of heavy enough material to hold up?

I’ve got to get busy and rig up a foot-lift for the presser bar on my Adler 205-64, and then learn how to use it. All of my other machines have knee-lift presser bar lifts on them (that have anything other than a hand lever lift). Having my machine mounted on a mechanic’s tool box will make rigging a challenge.

CD in Oklahoma

[Wishful]

That looks great. I am looking to do the same but haven't yet. Thanks for the inspiration.

[catskin]

Nice job, I intend to do a similar one soon. Yours gave some ideas that I might use when choosing materials.

Also if you had been able to change to a 1725 rpm motor you would have been half way there already. I just slowed down a singer 78-3 by machining out a little old air compressor flywheel and putting it onto the hub of the hand wheel. This gives me an 8 1/2 inch drive pulley rather then 4. It can be easily removed and the machine is back to original, I didn't even have to move the motor mounts.

Edited September 30, 2014 by catskin

[jjs111w]

I looked at slower rpm motors and even DC motors but in the end my cost to do the project was less than a quarter of the motor swaps. It was a bit of work but I do have the option of going back to original layout. With this configuration swapping pulley sizes to get different speeds will be easy to do should we want to. And it was fun to design and make.

As for the foot presser bar foot lift it seems strong enough, even though it may look like $&^$^&^.

Thanks for looking

jjs111w

[Constabulary]

I always like creative solutions! The foot lifting mechanism is interesting. But you are not able to flip back the machine anymore, right? Never forget that you have to oil several spots in the bed era manually!!!

[jjs111w]

To answer Constabulary concerning the ability to flip the machine back,

The intermediate shaft is in exactly the same location (angle) to the machine pulley so flipping is the same, tightening the belt as the machine is set back in place.

I do have to be careful when flipping machine back to normal with regard to the foot lifting mechanism. The rod that comes down from the machine sits inside a cup by about 1/4". So when flipping back I have to make sure it enters the cup as there is some play in the rod. I suppose we could make a cup with a funnel entry to guide the rod in but for now it works.

Thanks

jjs111w