As I mentioned in my last post, the bobbin winder that I fabricobbled together for my 201K3, while it works with an attached belted motor, isn’t going to work with the servo motor setup that this machine is going to be using.

There are a couple of solutions:

1. Use another machine to wind bobbins.
2. Buy any one of a number of stand alone bobbin winders (prices range from a low of about $20 to over $60)
3. Make my own.

I think you know where this is going…

One of the joys of having had a real shop in the garage for about 30 years is I have a great collection of “stuff”. Some who are less tolerant of clutter may call it “crap” or even something less family friendly, but to me, it’s a treasure trove of stuff, just waiting to get put back into service.

The same can also be said for the repair shop. From time to time, I am either given, or I find by the side of the road, machines that nobody wants, that have sewn their last stitch. Just because they are retired or not financially viable repair projects doesn’t mean they have zero value. Such was the case for a 1980’s Brother sewing machine that recently came my way. It was a 15 class zigzag that was way beyond repair, so I took it apart, saved all of the hardware and electrical components, as well as a few “Lego” sewing machine parts such as hook mechanism, presser, and needle bar parts. The rest of the carcase was cast away and is off to the recycle center.

I happened to have a bobbin winder mechanism designed for industrial machines. I keep that winder on hand in case a local tailor shop whose machines I service has yet another unit fail. They are inexpensive ($12.95 from Wawak), and are the perfect starting point for my project.

These units are intended to be installed on the sewing table at the balance wheel side of the machine. They are normally driven by the same belt that runs the sewing machine, but this wouldn’t work in my application as the geometry of the two machines that will share the table won’t allow the winder to be attached to the table and not have the other machine interfere. This is going to have to be a stand alone unit.

I’m kicking myself now for not taking pictures of the build process. Honestly, it went so fast, I didn’t even think about it. Starting with the winder unit, I went looking at my available stash of electric motors that could be pressed into service. My first instinct was to work out a belt drive arrangement, but that was a non-starter as to have done so would have negated the auto stop-on-full function of the winder. A friction drive was the order of the day.

Friction drive is a great concept, but sewing machine motors (which is what I have a lot of) have small pulleys on their shafts, and I had nothing that even resembled a friction drive. Nothing, that is, until I pulled out the motor from that dead 1980’s Brother. It had a small pulley all right, but it also had something NONE of my other motors had, a large round hunk of plastic on the shaft! A round hunk of plastic just enough larger than the inside diameter of a standard bobbin tire, that adding a bobbin tire to the outside makes the perfect friction drive! It got even better right away, there was a bracket welded onto the frame that I would have to partially cut away, the remaining portion of which make an excellent mounting tab! There was even another mounting bracket bolted to the back of the motor. It was as if the designers at Brother 40 years ago anticipated my every need/want/desire right down the line. To add even greater bliss, the power block is fully enclosed and has two mounting tabs. The Gods of Sewing Machines smiled down upon me this day!

Off to the workshop!

I gathered up the motor, power block, foot controller, and winder assembly and headed off to the garage.

Pawing through my scrap bin, I found a nice piece of 3/4″ birch plywood about 7″ wide and 24 inches long. I started playing around with the position of the parts and realized that I was going to have to modify the base of the bobbin winder mechanism to make this work. In order to keep the footprint reasonably small, I was going to have to place the motor across the base of the winder assembly. This was going to put the motor right in the middle of the thread path, something that would NOT be conducive to good bobbin winding. My solution was to determine where the motor was going to be, then bend the base of the winder assembly 90 degrees up, then at a reasonable height to clear the motor, bend it 90 degrees again back to the horizontal.

I made the necessary bends, played with the placement once again, and decided that I would keep the 7 inch width of the plywood, but cut it at 10 inches long. One quick pass with the circular saw, a little sanding to clean up the edges, and I took my plywood outside with a spray can of Krylon Crystal Clear to put a protective clear coat on the bottom. Once that was sprayed, I installed screw on rubber feet in all four corners, turned it over and sprayed the top and sides with two coats of the clear.

The next step was to amputate the excess material from the motor bracket (air powered, 3″ cut off tool to the rescue), and drill a few mounting holes.

From here out, it was just screwing the components down to the plywood. It took just a few minutes. I spent more time looking for the perfect hardware than I did installing it!

There is, as always, an alignment procedure to make this type of winder wind a bobbin evenly. I plan on doing a quick demonstration video which will be eventually posted to my YouTube channel.

Conclusion

This was a fun, very quick, very inexpensive project that should give us years of good service. I believe I have described it well enough for anyone who wishes to duplicate the effort. Sourcing the motor may be problematic – I don’t recall the model number of the machine it came from, nor do I know if all Brother motors of the model F2 have the same mounting brackets or plastic part. Having said that, it shouldn’t be too tough to scratch build a friction drive.

Enjoy!

It’s been about a year since I had my own “personal” Singer 201 in my arsenal. I gave my last personal one to my daughter in law Christine (and that machine is one of the finest stitching 201-2’s I’ve ever seen), when I moved on to using a Singer 1200-1. Now those in the know realize that a 1200 is really a 201-2 with a knee lift, but it IS placarded as a 1200, so I’m going to be a stickler for accuracy. My 1200 is also a fine machine, and I truly enjoyed the hours I spent sewing with her.

I’ve bought/sold/gifted a LOT of Singer 201-2 and 15-88/90/91 machines. Anyone in my family who wanted one, and I encouraged everyone to speak up, has one in their house. For the few who declined my offer, the offer still stands, just say the word, give me some time, and I’ll be more than happy to make it happen.

I’m one of those who believe strongly that the 201 based machines are the best domestic straight stitchers ever made, but alas, I had a genuine NEED for a much heavier duty, walking foot machine. So, with space being at a premium here in our very small house, my beloved 1200 had to go to a new home. She now lives with our good friend Brandi, where she is well loved and being well cared for. The reason for giving her up was simply that we have limited room, and the size of the 1200’s table (NOT a cabinet, because of the knee lift) made her impossible to keep with the much needed addition of the Sailrite Leatherwork walking foot machine. So, a day or so before the Sailrite arrived, the 1200 moved a few blocks over to Red and Brandi’s place.

Fast forward to the present day…

Lurking deep in my stash of vintage Singers was this refugee from Kilbowie, Scotland, a genuine 201K3. The “K” in the model number indicates the Kilbowie manufacturing plant, the “3” indicates the machine uses an external, belt drive motor. There were also -1 machines which had treadle power, -2 machines with used an attached “potted” motor and had a front mounted sewing light, and a -4 model which was a portable unit powered by a hand crank. Lest the reader think that a hand crank was a horrible way to go, there are many sewists today who still prefer a hand cranked machine Not many US made 201 series machines were in the -1, -3, or -4 configuration – at least not many that were delivered after the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. The vast majority of 201’s made at the Elizabeth, New Jersey plant were of the -2 variety, at least those that survive around here today. From what my friends on the other side of the pond, as well as those in Australia and New Zealand tell me, they rarely, if ever, see a -2 configured machine that was made in Kilbowie. Go figure…

I should mention that the -1 and -4 machines could easily, and affordably, be updated to the -3 standard, but I have yet to see one in the wild here in New Jersey.

Getting back to my 201K3…

When I was testing my new sewing machine maintenance fixture, I needed a full size subject of suitable wight. I have an abundance of 66 series machines, but they are very lightweight in comparison. There is a 15-91 in the house that needs some work, but in all honesty, I had just done a video on the 15-30 mechanism, and the -91 is very similar. Likewise, I have a 201-2 that’s lurking in a cabinet, but it’s buried and hard to access. I did have the 201K3, a nice, heavy, 201 series machine – not just a 201, but a -3 model, and there aren’t many videos of those on YouTube. It was time…

I bought the 201K3 15 or 16 months ago on Staten Island. I saw the machine listed on Facebook Marketplace for $40, and while that may sound like a total steal, you must also consider the toll is $16 for the Outerbridge Crossing (round trip) and another $3 for the Garden State Parkway, not to mention that my truck gets 11 MPG. Hey, it all adds up…

The 201K3 lingered in my garage, awaiting its turn for quite a while. In the meantime, some parts were “borrowed” to help other machines live again. Her motor, bobbin winder, lamp assembly, power block, and balance wheel all went to other machines with more pressing needs. Even her #40 cabinet went to help a beautiful singer 66-1 Red Eye. She was reduced to a mere shell of her previous glory.

That all changed on August 13th, 2021.

I installed her on the work fixture, made some quick measurements, and went to the garage to weld up the machinist jack which became the last part of my fixture project.

She then served as the test subject for what became a quick, 3 minute and 28 second video about the fixture. I no sooner finished editing the video when I realized that, of all the videos I have produced on Singer 201 subjects, I had never addressed the bottom end! The time had come to rectify that oversight.

Back to the shop, fire up the camera and the lights, kill the fans, start to sweat!

The resulting video covers the feed mechanism of the Singer 201 in more detail than most people would ever want, but at least I now have it documented. In the process, I have a full disassembled 201 bottom end on my hands, so what to do? Well, saying those parts were filthy is a gross understatement. There was no way I was going to put her back together covered in grime, so it was once again, time to strike while the iron was hot.

When I was putting her bottom end back together, it dawned on me that although Liz and I have a boatload of machines in our personal stash, only Liz had, at that time, a 201 that was ready to rock and roll. Her 201-2 is in a #42 art deco cabinet. I consider her machine to be HER machine. If I need to sew something, I’ll use something else. Just as we both have Buescher True Tone alto saxophones, MY 1929 is MINE, and HER 1927 is HERS – it’s a line I refuse to cross.

It became obvious to me while I was cleaning the 201K3 that I absolutely NEEDED to have a personal 201 again, but how? We don’t have room for another cabinet, and in my not very humble opinion a 201 is best in a cabinet or table.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The Sailrite and the 201 both have the same footprint! I wasn’t talking a 201-2, I was talking a 201K3 – a belted motor machine. That means, I don’t have to hang a motor on it at all, the 201 can “share” the Sailrite’s table and servo motor! Whichever machine is not in use can live in a carry case to protect it from dust and dirt (and in our house of 7 cats, cat hair!) Oh man! a servo powered 201! I’d seen video of guys going it, but nothing as elegant as my solution; except I still had yet to work out the details…

The Master Plan…

I knew that the 201 would fit in the opening of the table, and that the hinge spacing was the same. Fortunately, a lot of these things are like Lego, and the manufacturers don’t reinvent the wheel with every machine.

The question became: How to use the servo motor? The Leatherwork utilizes two belts and an intermediate pully system as the speed reduction, which makes perfect sense, it needs the addition torque for punching power. The 201 is graceful and built for speed! A stock 201-2 with its potted motor will run all day long at 1100 SPM (stitches per minute). The Sailrite Leatherwork is essentially their LS-1 with different feed dogs and the servo motor/table. Sailrite tells owners of the LS-1 that if they are going to use the servo motor, to turn it down to 25. For the LS-1 and Leatherwork, that makes perfect sense, they use oscillating hooks and running them at high speed is an invitation to break pieces… expensive pieces.

The 201, on the other hand, is a gear driven, full rotary hook, and is capable of MUCH higher sewing speeds. The question is, how to connect it without making any alterations to the table or the motor.

Once again, the answer was sewing machine Lego. While Sailrite sells their machines with an oversized balance wheel that uses their Posi-Pin system, the offer a cogged “normal” sized wheel that uses a standard stop motion clutch knob. Sewing machine Lego!
For $25 + shipping, one was ordered. I did a lot of reading of the Sailrite instruction manuals and determined that an LS-1 in my table with their large sized balacheel and no speed reduction requires a 42″ 3/8″ cogged belt with a .2″ pitch. Some measurements of the heights of the centerlines of the Leatherwork and 201 machines, followed by a little math where the difference in diameter of the balance wheels were taken into consideration, and I guesstimated that I would need a 40″ belt of the same width and pitch. Guess what I found on Amazon for $12?

The only issue to be resolved is the bobbin winder. I fabricobbled a bobbin winder out of parts salvaged from various Japanese 15 clones of the 1950’s and 60’s, and while it “works” I’m not happy with it. My intent is to procure a bobbin winder for a commercial machine, motorize it, and mount it on the far right side of the table. That way, it can be used for both the class 66 bobbins of the 201 and the class 15 of the Sailrite.

So that’s where we stand as of right now. More to come!

I recently posted a series of videos on my YouTube channel showing a fixture I designed to help when working on the bottom of sewing machines. I promised that I would put a measured drawing of the fixture up on my website when I had a usable one available. Well, not pretty, but here it is! Feel free to download the image, print it out, and make one for yourself. The image is sized for legal (8 1/2″ X 14″) paper. Stay tuned for a drawing of my adjustable support, though I’m still working on making that better.

Enjoy!

I’m a huge advocate of wearing a work apron. If your not the one in your household that usually does the laundry, wearing an apron is that much more important, especially if your tasks are dirty and/or greasy.

Aprons are relatively easy to make, and are a great beginners sewing machine project. As a public service, and because I practice what I preach, Here’s my pattern (with some instructions right on the page) for the aprons I make and use.

Materials required:

1 yard of 10 ounce cotton duck fabric

Approximately 4 yards of 1/2 inch finished width double fold bias binding tape.

Enough 1 inch wide nylon webbing for your waist strap (allow some extra for adjusters

Webbing hardware of your choice.

As for the pattern itself, I’ve been asked how to lay out the curve evenly. What I do is cut the 33×23 inch panel, then fold it in half lengthwise and pin it together opposite the fold. Measure up from the bottom 23 inches and make a mark. At the top of the material, measure 4 1/2 inches from the fold and make a mark. Use your fabric marker and sketch your curve freehand, or use a French curve to lay it out on one side of the material. Once you’re happy with the way your curve looks, cut both sides at the same time. Easy Peasy! Sew 1/2 inch binding around the entire perimeter of the apron body. Create your pocket to a size you like (I make mine a little over sized to fit my cell phone) and use binding tape around the perimeter as well. I center my pocket on the upper portion of my apron, but place it high enough so the pocket stays above the break of my waist when I’m sitting so my phone is easy to access. Feel free to add as many pockets as you want. Two rows of stitching will ensure your pocket stays attached!

There you go, a simple and relatively inexpensive, fun, and practical, sewing project.

Save your clothes, wear an apron!

I have a tag line at the end of every one of my YouTube videos that says
“Get a coffee mug! The world is so much better with coffee…”
Well, I’m here to say that’s a true statement, the world IS a better place with coffee.
I’ve been drinking coffee regularly since 1973, which is a long time. I’ve never attempted to calculate how much I’ve consumed over the years, and that’s not even important. What IS important is that now, at almost 63 years of age, I found out how to make a BETTER cup of coffee using the same coffee and brewing and filter system that I’ve used for years.

I owe it to the internet.

Well, not the internet per se, one specific website, the site of my favorite coffee brand, Chock Full o’Nuts. On their sub page “Coffee Basics”, they mention a technique I wish I had known before, “Getting Fancy: Give the grounds 60 seconds to bloom before you brew”.

WTH? Why didn’t I know THAT before? They don’t explain the science behind it, they just say that it has something to do with releasing carbon dioxide, and that it works.

Well, Hell Yeah it works!

I’m a single cup, Melita pour-over kinda guy. My wife is a tea drinker (though she will have a Caramel Macchiato out of a K-Cup every once in a while) and I’m not one to allow coffee to sit in a carafe on a warming plate of a drip maker, so an electric kettle and a Melita pour-over filter holder makes perfect sense in our house. This is really the perfect setup for the technique they describe: Pour some very hot water on your grounds, let it sit for a minute, then pour the rest of the brew. OMG, it works. My favorite coffee is suddenly even better.

I feel like I died and went to heaven.

Thanks Chock Full o’Nuts.

One year ago today, I changed the trajectory of my YouTube channel from a few random woodworking tool videos, to one centered on vintage sewing machines (VSM’s). What a difference one year has made.

I’ve gone from 83 subscribers to, as of a few minutes ago, 1030 subscribers. I’ve posted 59 videos related to VSM’s which have had 52,204 views and 5,517 hours of watch time. These are decidedly NOT impressive stats by any measure, especially YouTube, but we’re not talking about a channel designed to entertain the masses. This is a niche audience, a very small niche audience. So, as you can imagine, I’ll never make any money on YouTube. Oh, I’ll make a few dollars, but not enough to recoup the costs of equipment and software, but that’s OK, it was never my intention.

So why do it, why make the videos, what’s in it for me?

Well, I have to admit a side benefit of the YouTube channel is it does drive a little business to my website and to my small repair business. That was an unexpected side benefit, and never part of my plan (I have to admit, I never actually wrote out a business plan for repairing sewing machines, this is, like most of my YouTube videos, a “flying by the seat of my pants” operation).

The advertising revenue from YouTube is miniscule for a channel that is as small as mine, and with very limited public interest, it will likely never get large enough to generate more that a cup of coffee every few days.

Well, I make videos for a couple of reasons.

1. I almost died on October 24th, 2020. I mean I REALLY almost died, heart attack, arterial blockages, the lights went out, had to be revived in the ambulance, THAT kind of freaking died. Had that happened, just about everything I knew, and everything I have since learned, would have died with me. OMG – That is so not cool. That would have been a waste of everything I knew, all the soap and water used to scrub hundreds of years of collective crud from my hands would have been used in vain, all because I hadn’t shared what I had learned.
2. I make videos to help people. In my VSM journey, I have made friends all over the world. We’re a community, and communities help each other. In the community of VSM’s, we help each other source hard to find parts and manuals. As our knowledge grows, we find ourselves answering the same questions over and over and over again, but we don’t complain, because each time we answer that same question, we’re helping a NEW member of the community overcome the obstacles WE had to climb.
3. I make videos because I’m an anachronism. I was born during the tail end of the era when things were made to last, and frankly, I’m pissed off that I was born as late as I was. I was born at a time when quality was starting to take a back seat, and then was kicked out of the car all together. I grew up when things, expensive things, were starting to become replaceable instead of repairable. I came of age in an era when “value” was confused with “price”, a concept that escapes most people nowadays. I belong to an age from before I was born, an age when men and women built things to last, with quality materials, and the best engineering had to offer.
4. Last, but not least, I make videos to teach, and hopefully, to inspire. I want young people to get excited about things from the past, the tools, the materials, the techniques. Too many things from our past, useful things, have been pushed away as being “old fashioned”, or “too labor intensive” for “modern” life. In addition to VSM’s, I’m a huge fan of hand tool woodworking. I have, and use, a large selection of hand planes. There was a time when EVERY woodworker knew his way around a hand plane, not anymore. We live in a “Post Norm Abrams” world where power tools are always a first choice, even when they’re not the BEST choice. Likewise, fewer and fewer people know how to sew, and the rise of the computer controlled, “plastic fantastic” sewing machine, with hundreds of stitches and tons of features that will never be used, has pushed the traditional, straight stitch, cast iron machine to the dustbin of history. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.

It’s been said that once something is on the internet, it’s there forever.

Welcome to my immortality.

My wife Liz and I are the District Directors of New Jersey Gold Wing Road Riders Association, an international motorcycling group whose motto is “Friends for Fun, Safety, and Knowledge”. A lot of our members are quilters, and when some of them from Chapter NJ-D asked if I would put on a “Featherweight Day” to go over maintenance procedures. I couldn’t resist, so it was on!

The event was planned for a Saturday afternoon, so it would follow the monthly gathering of NJ-D. Desi is a first responder, and was able to secure the use of her fire house. Liz and I assembled some cool “goody bags” that everyone there got to take home, with cool tools and supplies. One of our members, Judy, was invited to “try out” the Featherweight to see if she would like if before making a purchase. What she didn’t know is that we were conspiring against her and the machine she was working with was in fact her birthday present from Liz, Desi, and I! We even managed to keep it a secret from her husband Steve until the chapter gathering that morning. When he found out, he was all in and very excited. Sue, also a member of NJ-D, joined us with not one, but two Featherweights, and brought along a Willcox and Gibbs chain stitch machine for me to service (more on that in another post).

Interested in everything mechanical, Steve joined us at the fire house and was able to work on a spare machine we brought along. Judy had NO clue that she was working on her machine and kept on asking me if I was going to sell a machine (we brought four). Desi kept telling her “Oh, wait, see if you REALLY like one before you make that decision…”

Liz and I plan on doing this again, but next time, for a wider audience. We have a lot of coordinating to do…

This was soooooo much fun!

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There really is no better feeling than when you can make someone happy. The Singer 66 you see here was shipped to me by a customer from Atlanta. It was gone from her home for exactly two weeks, including round trip transit time. Like all my customers, I kept her informed as to the progress on her baby, including pictures and videos. We were on the phone when she and her husband unpacked the box. The sound of her voice as they removed the last of the bubble wrap and stretch film cocoon made it all worthwhile. She was so very, very happy. This is why I do what I do. It’s not just the machines, it’s the people. I’m one lucky, lucky guy…

Here are a few pictures of a Singer 66-1 from 1917 I recently finished for a customer in Atlanta, GA. When she arrived, her mechanism was a sticky mess of old oil turned to varnish. Even her exterior bright work was covered in years of sticky old oil. Her mechanism was so gummed up, it was almost impossible to turn the balance wheel!

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She arrived on a Tuesday, and by Sunday night she was stitching and looking great! She lives in a treadle cabinet when she’s home, but here, she went into a base and I attached a motor for her test stitching.

In addition to her clean, polish, adjust, and lubrication level service, I converted her from a back clamping presser foot to a side clamping so her owner can use commonly available low shank accessories. Also, she was made prior to Singer using a needle bar clamp with timing marks and an integrated timing gauge. I swapped out the needle bar clamp with one from a Singer 201 and added the gauge so as to make future adjustments much easier for her next major service, in another 104 years from now!

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If you’re going to go bold, you might as well GO BOLD! My tractor paint experiment is finished, though as I type this only three of the four parts for the video have been published on YouTube. I’ll give it this, it’s bright. Not exactly “see it from space” bright, but you could probably pick it out from 20,000 feet with a Norden bombsight.

So, color aside, how does she stitch? Don’t be silly, she’s a Singer 66, she makes a beautiful stitch, and will continue to do so for at least another 106 years doing the same, beautiful work.

I’ve been asked “How much”? Well, I’m not sure if I’m going to sell her just yet. She has to stay here for a while, I need to know if she’s going to grow on me. I wish the decals popped against the red a bit more, maybe the red needs to be a darker shade for the gold to have a greater impact. I just may have to paint another one…