After a few hours of cleaning and several modifications, I find this machine quite usable. Several things were found to be
in need of change. The presser foot handle was very difficult to operate from the back side so I made a new handle oriented towards
the top. That was easy to do and very handy now. Pushing the handle towards the crank end actuates the presser
and towards the needle end drops it. The bobbin winder was removed and another made of brass, a couple scraps of 4130
steel and a rubber donut that was the push rod seal from an old O-470 Continental engine. Also I made a bracket and a little
base to hold the thread at a better angle to feed the thread.
Here you can see my presser foot modification and thread base.
This is a photo of the original bobbin winding device on the left and my new one on the right. I silver soldered a small cylinder
of 4130 to the bent flat steel to fabricate the shape needed. Then I machined a little flywheel that was threaded internally to hold the
tapered brass rod. The new bobbin device has brass on steel for a bearing. The old one had threads and a rolled piece of tin for
a bearing. It's not a big thing but winding some thread on the bobbin puts a smile on my face now.
I did some grinding and polishing on the rod that actuates the needle and I must admit it looks better now. I find it interesting
that there are many so called brands of this machine but they all use the same basic casting in the manufacture. For the
moment, it is good enough and I can move on to building a better support and automate the machine. The machine was $92.00
on E-Bay (plus tax) so I have $100 invested now. I have to say it was money well spent and a fun project indoors to do during a
long Minnesota winter. Tomorrow I will experiment with the gear reduction motor with a variable speed DC power supply to
get the feel of how that would work. If it looks promising, that will be my next project along with some sort of ergonomically
convenient support table.
Tomorrow we see the shortest amount of daylight so from then on the days will be getting longer. I see the sun in the southeast
now in the morning and it comes up sort of, not really getting overhead and sets in my southwest. That's something to look forward to,
longer days....
MERRY CHRISTMAS from Catwerks!