I’ve been cleaning up a little 1944 Singer 99 hand crank machine for the past few weeks. The machine is done now but the base needed a little TLC as well. One thing that’s always troublesome for me is getting little cushioned feet that I like — a lot of the ones you get now are plastic instead of rubber and they’re also too tall. I don’t like them, and the self-adhesive things are even worse when they (eventually) come off and leave a smeary glue residue all over everything. So, what to do…
Leather is nice but it compresses over time and tends to expose whatever fastener is holding it on. If only I could countersink it somehow…
There was a part of me that said softly “..frank, this has the makings for bad things to happen…” but I went ahead anyway figuring what the heck, I’ve got bandaids upstairs…
I rounded up my nice bit of saddle leather and punched a few discs with the gasket punch. Then I took a sharp brad point spur bit and chucked it into the drill press. This was the almost perfect result — a beautifully clean hole with a nice crisp bottom. All four drilled the same — no tear out, no grabbing, no spinning in my fingers, just a nice clean counterbore.
A few small tacks to hold things in position on we’re good to go.
I still need to clean up the hardware a bit but that won’t take a lot. I’m not aiming for a total restoration, just clean enough to come back into good service as a dedicated buttonhole machine. Thanks for looking!
Oh yeah, almost forgot — here’s what the original feet loot like after 80 years…
