The Sewing Place
Machine Talk => Vintage Machines => Topic started by: LeilaMay on September 28, 2019, 08:16:55 AM
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Well as the rain and cooler weather arrives, and less time is spent in the garden, the first of the winter sewing machine restorations is beginning. A 1953 black 221K, with Celtic knot pattern decals, which is in serious need of attention.
I've never tried to sew with it, having taken a look in the top and the bottom you will see what I mean, and so this is going to be where I learn 'how to' :)
The first two shots show the heavy over greasing that's taken place at some time in the past, and the odd wire I found in the bottom (although FWS tell me this is more common that I knew). Later there will be shots and notes on having taken off the motor and the light fitting, if it goes according to plan.
Anyone who has done similar and has comments, do please feel free to speak up :)
And anyone who wants to follow along and chat away, you're very welcome.
Leila (needs to buy more latex gloves)
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Yes please! :)
Jessie
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of course.... that stray wire is an oddity - looks like youre defusing a bomb :)
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A quick and messy update.
This is the state of the motor wiring:
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My OH says it will be necessary to splice in new wires for both of those that connect to the motor. He can do this with/for me. The carbon brushes are in good condition. There are no capacitors inside the motor.
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I have also completely removed the light fitting - which had been rewired at some point, although the wiring is now going to need to be replaced again because . . .
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the over-greasing of the top gears (and most likely the use of the wrong type of grease) has caused excess to come through into the area of the light wires coming into the machine body, and made these wires greasy. Grease has also dropped right down the main pillar of the machine to infect the wiring that sits below it. So the whole thing is slimy :(
More is not better when it comes to the oi and grease needed for the machine :S
Anyway, OH has now started making quince jam, so nothing will happen for a while with the electrics.
I have the mechanical arts to clean, and also the case to tidy up a bit.
I am making much use of two online resources. The Featherweight shop 'schoolhouse maintenance tutorials' on their site, and the blog 'My sewing machine obsession' who also took apart a motor similar to this one.
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Fascinating! I look forward to this. :)
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I can strip all my machines down and put them back together with ease hubby wishes I could do the same with a car
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I'm so impressed!! I struggle getting the ruffle attachment on and off :|
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All the electrical components are awaiting work - today the cycle race and F1 took precedence - but I have taken more of the mechanical parts away from the main body of the machine. To clean them well and because I will also be attempting the amazing cleaning and polishing that the Featherweight shop achieve on their machines.
I have even ( first for me) removed the whole gib hook assembly, to get out soe threads caught right behind it. I followed the FWS videos to do this successfully.
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I've cleaned the gear mechanism at the top - I'll be doing the bottom tomorrow.
Then I'll be cleaning the whole external machine and polishing, before cleaning the rest of the parts and assembling. By then I should be able to get my electrical helper to get involved with me :)
Tomorrow I have a friend visiting, so there'll be a halt of a couple of days. . .
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Well done so far @LeilaMay :) I will have to remove the bobbin case and gib on mine as there is a thread stuck that I can't get out :o I hope I manage it successfully :vintage: :)
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The extra green wire looks like something someone added for earthing, clearly they thought it was dangerous.
Date of the machine probably predates TV, hence no capacitors.
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The extra green wire looks like something someone added for earthing, clearly they thought it was dangerous.
Date of the machine probably predates TV, hence no capacitors.
Yes I should think you're right. It's not going back though :)
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My ‘54 221k had a cylindrical capacitor, which I removed, so that green wire is probably from there as I can’t see a capacitor. They were put in the reduce noise and interference from radio, shortwave??
I’ll follow with interest, as mine really needs rewiring, but I know nothing about electrics, my OH though does, but has been reluctant to have a go in case he renders it useless. Would it be possible to let us know where you source your new wires from.
I agree with you about the oil/grease, it’s perished most of the wire protection on mine.
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My OH is using a 2 core 3 amp wire, and will be sheathing the newly spliced wires on the motor with electrical insulation sheathing.
He's not very specific there I'm sorry - but when I first asked him "where did you get the wire from" he answered "in the garage" so I squeezed a bit more detail out of him :)
It's not a particularly fun exercise, made worse by the fact that our motor had been badly greased, and I'm glad we had two pairs of hands to work on it, but we're getting there.
I would most highly recommend you watch the tutorials from the Featherweight Shop - they are super helpful!
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So the light first - on this machine it is the tye where the switch is up on the light housing (not the type with the switch next to the bobbin-winding tension)
The old wire is removed, and new wire fixed in place
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Replacing the little plate that comes out of the bodywork to seperate the light from the gears
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The wire is threaded back down the space in machine it came out of (ends taped together at this point to help with the 'threading' down the hole)
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And is then put back in position under the machine to await the rest of the wiring
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Hope that all makes sense?
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Less pictures of the motor, as OH didn't want to be photographed mid-solder!
This was the state of the wiring to the motor before
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OH cut the wires away at the broken points, and spliced in new wires, each one soldered. Then fairly long insulation sheaths were placed over each join, and the original outer plastic-y sheath slid over the whole lot (we softened the outer sheath in just-warm water to uncrankle it a bit). This is the finished result, you can see the kind of insulation sheathing he used next to the motor.
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Then we jury-rigged it via the machine socket (using a safety cut-out plug to the main) to check that the motor now ran. Success!
The worst part was that the grease ports on this motor had been filled with a dark heavy car grease - and REALLY filled! OH says it was probably done with a grease gun. We had a bit of trying time getting it all out - it squeezed/squelched out of the holes like . . well you'll have to imagine what it was like, but it had to come out. We hope no permanent damage will be done to the motor that some is inevitably remaining. I have now used the correct grease in the ports.
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The motor is now set back on the machine, and the belt adjusted.
It seemed to me to be a fairly awkward thing to get the wires all attached back to the three-pin socket for the machine. OH says it IS fiddly, and the only advice he could give would be it's better to have the wires too long (i.e. to have made the entire length of wiring too long to start with, and have excess at the end) because you can always shorten it a little bit more if there's too much to tuck back inside the machine when you replace the Bakelite 3-pin socket.
(He has some experience of constructing electrically powered bits of kit in his former work life, and still keeps his hand in making a train set; I'm not sure I would have been confident to try this alone, despite understand the principles of the wiring).
This morning's job is to thread it up, now that the upper tension unit is cleaned and replaced, and see if I can get nice stitch :vintage:
All the helpful videos we used were found at https://singer-featherweight.com/blogs/schoolhouse/tagged/maintenance
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Oh - other things I did that I could mention. Because I intended to clean and polish the body of the machine, I took off all the removal bits (at once!). usually I'd work on just on part of the machine at a time, but as I was doing this all at once I used grip top plastic bags to separate and keep safe all the various things. So the tiny screws for the bobbin area not muddled up with the screw that holds the tension unit backplate on, and so on. This was very helpful when I came to put everything back.
I cleaned the tension unit - not rust but a lot of sticky grunge.
I replaced the felt drip tray today as well - the new one is black so hard to see. But I just stripped off the old one and used it to make a template, then glued the new one back down.
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AND IT WORKS!
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In fact it sounds really sweet, moves very nicely and the stitch quality is lovely. It's sounding better than my other black 221 and so I might need to fettle that one before I eve use it again.
But definitely worth doing.
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Well done. 0_0 You are braver than me!
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And it's beautiful <3
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Well done it looks lovely I've a 1949 Featherweight which hubby got me in August. It had a capacitor fitted but we had to take it out as it was faulty and making the machine run on its own which was a bit disconcerting as you can imagine.
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Great job @LeilaMay & OH! It looks beautiful :vintage: :)
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What a fantastic job and beautiful machine
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Lovely job! :loveit: