More on the Singer 127

Don’t you love the picture of this Singer repair guy and his old van?

This photo was taken somewhere in the 1940s by the look of he van ---Did he just deliver machines, or did he work on them making house calls wherever he was needed?

I sure could use someone who’d make a house call with these treadle beasts.

I showed a couple pictures of the new treadle last evening in the Quilt Cam post – but for those of you who missed it….

This is just a beautiful machine.  I’ve not seen one with the decals so lovely ---and the cabinet AND machine cost me $75.00

At first I was thinking “Oh, I don’t know”  and then I realized that 7 yards of fabric off the bolt at the local quilt shop would cost me at least that much.  Done Deal!

I can’t get over how intact these decals are!  And look at this side plate….lovely!

I have a suspicion on HOW the decals lasted so long.  I believe this machine was kept near a kitchen if not in the kitchen area itself.  How do I know?  That side plate you see above was crusted with dried and aged kitchen grease.  It took some very hot soapy water and dawn dish soap to get the yellow gunk off and the chrome to shine silver again.

Look at this piece:

Yellow Gross-ness!

I scraped it with my fingernail, and saw that it would come off…so this was soaked in hot water and dawn soap too and then scrubbed.  You can see how much build up there is around where the screw goes!

Shiny and clean! Look…the reflection of my hand and my cell phone taking the photo!

So yes, the kitchen grease is gross ---but is that what helped keep these decals? A protective coating?

I’m not scrubbing the machine bed.  I simply clean with sewing machine oil and rub with a soft cloth.  I don’t want to risk chemicals that will react with the gold leaf and turn the decals silver. 

The serial number is AA786058.  This puts her manufacture date at 1925.  I thought for sure she would be “older” than my 66 Red Eye – because the 66 has a drop side round bobbin, and I would consider those “more modern” –and this is the old vibrating shuttle with long bobbin ---which I thought was more “old fashioned” but evidently Singer made long bobbin machines well into the 1940s.

A whole drawer of goodies!

And this part is amazing….after all these years…the KEY to lock the drawers is still here!  I wonder what was locked in these drawers over the years.  I suppose locked drawers would prevent small children from gaining access to sharp needles, pins and scissors….I’m tickled about the key!

Evidently the previous owner only found the threading and bobbin winding pages necessary. This was all there was of any kind of manual ---

Three pages – definitely belonging to this machine.  Pages show how to thread the needle, and how to wind a bobbin.  I’m thinking of having these pages laminated ---because they are tearing and brittle and I’d really like to preserve them in a way I can read both sides of the pages.

And the big question of all – does she sew??  Yes!

I haven’t wound a bobbin yet, but I couldn’t resist just trying with the thread that was on the bobbin already in the machine.  The stitches were large, almost like basting – but the tension was almost perfect!  A quick turn of the stitch length screw to the left and I finally had her sewing a  “normal” every day stitch length

There is one thing missing ---she doesn’t have a check spring in the tension assembly.  That must have broken off somewhere, so I will be ordering a new one….and a couple more bobbins and a couple spool pins.  I had to borrow a spool pin from another machine to get one on her.

The cabinet is in better shape than I thought it would be too.  Dry wood just soaks up  furniture oil and I have  a bottle of beeswax wood nourisher I bought at an antique mall years ago that really shined her up nice.

Still no name…..I’m hoping the seller will get back to me in the next few days and let me know the name of his next-door neighbor’s mother.  This was her machine.

With two treadles, back to back in the basement –my hope is that I can convince my local quilty friends to come treadle with me! I mean – they could actually say they are headed out for a “work out!” :cD

Yes, it was a GREAT birthday!