Davis Rides Again!

I’ve been on a search for a long time for pieces and parts to pull together and finally get my Davis machine up and running.

You can see here it’s nearly hidden in the corner at the bottom of my basement stairs --

Great for a display piece – but she’s never sewn since I’ve had her.

This was the second treadle machine I ever bought –she came from Baker City Oregon somewhere around 1992.

We had just bought our first “real” house after spending 10 years in a single wide mobile home while we struggled as young marrieds with young children, trying to make ends meet while The Hubster finished school at Boise State and I worked ---as an xray department assistant at the local hospital all the way up until Jeff was born in 1990.  And then, still needing to help bring in a living, making dolls and stuffed animals and selling them through local crafters malls and gift boutiques, finally moving on to selling patterns.  It was a life time ago.

And through every move, the Davis came along ---always being placed in an inconspicuous spot, spending time as an end table, a bed side table, an accent piece for the sewing room – yet never sewing.

Until TONIGHT!

Several months ago, Allison had helped me find her a shuttle and a bobbin, and we found she takes a Boye 40 needle.

I was on a mission for the last missing piece.  FIND A NEEDLE CLAMP!  That was the only part of the puzzle missing ---and I started to search through every obscure machine I have just trying to find one that will fit that odd sized needle bar. The Singer needle clamps were all too small.  This needed something BIGGER.

And I found it.  On my EATONIA!  BINGO!!  Now that I have one that fits, I have one to compare with so I can get this one back on the Eatonia at some point.

Ready to Roll for a test drive!

I used the tubing belting to get her ready to treadle – my eager and hopeful hands running the belt through the holes, around the fly wheel, and giving her very old wooden pitman rod a tender caress and finding no cracks.  Solid as the day she was born ---when was the last time someone put a belt on her?

She sews!

And it only took one slight tightening turn on the upper tension to get a stitch looking really nice…I put her through her paces and adjusted the stitch length to see what it would do.

BUT SHE IS LOUD!  HOLY. MOLY!

I made this little video so you can be witness…I did this on my iPhone while holding it with one hand and sewing with the other while talking, so pardon a bit of blurry and bad panning here and there:

Sew fun to see her sewing!  And once I had all the parts, it wasn't as hard as I thought!

Cabinet with the door open to hold the extension steady.

Eastlake Cabinet front with the door closed.

The cabinet needs some help. But now that I know the machine sews, it will become a future project. The machine wants to fall out when you try to lower it into the cabinet to close the lid, some check screws are missing and the mechanism that swings her down has issues….The front panel of the cabinet has cracked at some point, but isn't her carving gorgeous?

I figure after this long she has a right to be a bit beat up, and her balance wheel a bit wobbly.

But she’s sewing!  And that makes me a happy quilter!

And yes – this is a very late post, but I’m still on Texas time, and puttering around before going to pick up DH at the airport – he has a 11:15pm arrival ---this is how I’m staying awake!  ((It sure beats cleaning bathrooms, which I have already done!))

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