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| Before cleaning |
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| Cleaning out the surface rust |
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| The zig zag gears |
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| All shined up, ready to sew |
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
More Cleaning
Besides the 301, I also have been working on a Singer 237 I bought that will go into the treadle stand that is not completed refinished. This machine was made in Italy, so now I have the US, Great Britain, and Italy represented in my sewing colony. It was not terribly dirty, but surprising, inside, it had a lot of surface rust. This machine is from the 70s, and all the older machines I have, have never had rust like this one. The casting is a lot rougher than my other Singers. A green scratchie and rubbing alcohol got rid of most of the rust. The needle plate was stuck to the insides with rust, yet the outside of the machine is pristine. I wonder if the quality of the steel was just not as good? I remember Fiats and Alpha Romeos from the 70s and they were a joke of a rustbucket- great interiors, lousy steel. Anyways, I coated all the metal with Tri-flow and hope that will arrest the problem. I am going to disengage the motor for use on a treadle so I can zig zag on a treadle. The belt that was on there was so stiff, that the motor wouldn't turn the machine, so I put on one of those rubber band types to see how it sews. The zig zags looked perfect. I had done a lot of digging out of old gunk in the zig zag gears with wooden sticks and alcohol and regreased with Tri-flow grease, so it paid off. Now, I have the refinish job on the treadle top to contend with and I can't work out in the garage anymore.
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6 comments:
Nice job. You will like the feed dog drop; good for FMQ. Since it is a low shank machine, any low shank FMQ or darning foot should fit it. My 127 doesn't drop the dogs. I almost kept this one. HAH !
The rust may have been because of poor grade steel - however, I've found American made early Singers with the rust problem too. Storing a machine in a damp place like a cellar or barn for many years will cause this. Storing a machine indoors in a hot place like an attic or near a heater may cause the oil to dry up and often seizes up the machine. I have a beautiful 237, stored near a radiator that took me 2 weeks to be able to turn the hand wheel. Love my kero and triflo.
I need to buy a low shank FMQ foot. I have plenty of slant shank ones. I want an all metal one, the plastic cloud up and are too big.
I think I would rather have a dried out machine than rust. The biggest problem is under the needle plate- the corrosion is all transferred to the plate. Should I use some rust remover like Evapo rust or just keep oiling it? Love the Tri-flow.
If the needle plate is really horrible and you think it might take more than an hour to address the rust problem you might want to consider a new one. Sew-Classic http://shop.sew-classic.com has a universal needle plate for zz 15 singers and clones for $6.00.
I am not sure the15 plate fits the 237. If it does, I am all over a new plate. I could try some rust remover, but the problem is the platform that the plate sits on is rusting.
Well I just checked it out. I compared an early Kenmore plate to a 237 and they weren't exactly the same. All screw holes in the right place but the "universal" has an extra metal middle strip that the 237 doesn't have. If you were handy at grinding metal, you could grind off the extra metal on the "universal" plate, but I have no skills at that, so wouldn't spend $$ to try. So sorry. Good luck on the derusting.
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