Repair of 1950s Singer motor

I met a fellow blogger the other day at Spotlight (Vogue pattern sale) and surprising number of amazing patterns left at only $5 each. Yes I know (bought 27), but I digress. She (thornberry.blogspot.com.au) told me to write something as I've been a bit slack recently.

So a few days later a lady from an FB group asked about repairing her older machines. Yes indeed there should be more information about this, so here is the most common electrical problem I've found with Singer motors: The wiring for the singerlight (that's what they were called by Singer) degrades and the wires touch, causing drama and blow fuses.

Warning: My friend Cyndy asked me to make an instructional piece on doing this and to make sure I warn people not to do this unless they're completely competent, familiar and comfortable with all of these concepts. I usually assume that people already do this, but she's right: Please don't play with electrical things if you have any doubts at all.

Here's the before picture (bit out of focus but still obvious what the problem is). This one is nowhere near as bad as I've seen. A lovely friend gave me a 201K23 for my birthday and the wiring was absolutely gone, and I mean no insulation left, wires totally touching each other at several places. This one would have been completely fine for decades, as the rubber insulation was completely intact, it was just the green outer that had gone. Pretty unsightly and looks dangerous, and I want to sell the machine (a 320K2). The rest of the power cable had already been replaced with the standard black.

Singer motor and light, connected by degraded flex

1. Remove the light. Prise off the end: This just pulls away with the lense still on. After this remove the bulb or it will get broken.
2. Unscrew the plate that's covering the light's mounting screw (already removed in the picture above) then remove the mounting. Put all screws back so you don't mix them up. That is, as soon as you remove the light, put the plate back.
3. Remove the motor screw then remove the motor from the machine and put the screw back in.

Now the motor and light have been removed as a unit. Put the machine out of the way until you're ready to put it all back on.

4. Disassemble the light.
4a Circlip 1. Just take a small screwdriver (jeweller's or the one for adjusting the bobbin) and unclip that circlip in the picture. This is one of two things holding the light fitting in one piece, there are no screws, just two clips.
4b Other clip is here:

Original was green, but snapped when I tried to remove it :-(

This clip is much harder to move. You don't have to remove the screw, but make sure you only turn it so the spring holds it less tightly. In the picture that means pushing the bit with the screw upwards. You need only a little turn, so the arms (already removed) can be pulled out. Pull them out. They will be pretty tight and they're sharp-ish, so try to grip them hard then pull away as you did the lense.
Now you can turn the clip and prise it off. Once off the light will separate into two.

Again, this is an after shot.

This is what the inside looks like. The wires (originally yellow and red) are soldered to those copper strips. Remove the copper strips with the wires attached.

and again

Unsolder the wires. This is a little tricky because you need dexterity holding, soldering and pulling at the same time. Make sure you remove all the solder, because the new wires have to go all the way through these holes.
The other ends are on the motor. Unscrew the long screws holding the wiring cover on. Remove the cover and the piece of cardboard and you should be looking at this.

well not quite: again this is an after shot

Unscrew what you need to and put the nuts and washers somewhere safe. The original wires are clamped and soldered to little circular washers. If you have these, use them. I don't.
Now you should have the original wires in your hand. You need to cut the replacement wire to the right size. Better to err on the larger side. Remove sufficient insulation and bare enough wire to wrap around the two posts on the motor.
Solder the new wire to the copper strips from the motor first, and before you install the other end in the motor, make sure you have both the light circlip and the white plastic motor wire clamp in place . The latter goes into the hole that the screw secures in the above picture (on the right). You don't want to leave either of these off.

Wires are now secure on the motor end

Put the white plastic back in its place and secure it with the screw. Reassemble the motor wiring cover.

All in place

With the cardboard insulation

Ready for the screws

Now the light end. Solder the copper wires to the copper contacts and insert them back into the light assembly. You might have to play with the switch a little to get them in. I used long nosed pliers. Don't bend them, you shouldn't need to force them at all.

Now it's just a matter of putting it together, replacing the circlip - you can push it over the lip and into the recess with your thumbs.

The next bit requires some force. Make sure you know which way to put the front light clip by lining it up on the machine. If you put it on backwards you'll get really upset. Put it on but not in exactly the finish position. It has to be off by a bit for you to reinsert the arms. Once you do this, turn the clip until it clicks into its groove and put the bulb and lense back.

If you screw this up, just have patience. I've done this a lot of times, and know it well. If you make a mistake, you'll probably not do the same thing again. It'd hard not to get angry if you do though :-).

Ready to go back on the machine

Doesn't it look nice? New plastic wiring should last a very long time indeed. I chose cord that has copper inside. Not sure if it makes a lot of difference but it shouldn't degrade over time.

Before putting it back on, check the brushes. These are small blocks of carbon whose purpose is to make electrical contact with the armature (of the rotor, rotating part in the middle of the motor).

Here's how to check the brushes. You're checking the size, and you can check how dirty the armature is too.

Remove the caps from the end of the motor - these are visible in the above picture. Take out the screw and you should be looking at this:

Exposed brushes

You can see the copper thing here. I pushed it up a little to make it clearer (which it didn't), but power is supplied from the wires on the right, which are soldered to the J shaped copper bit. The brass case is conductive and contains a metal spring pushing on the black carbon brush. The copper thing at the bottom is the motor's armature. This brush has already been checked and is fine. Check them every service and if less than half this length, replace them both. Don't take them out unless you have to: The ends are shaped as a curve by the armature and if put back differently you could easily lose power in the motor because the contact isn't as good.

Singer 320K2

Can't believe I haven't posted about this. My first sewing machine was a 319k. I loved that thing (you can see it in previous posts). However, they're really common and after buying a couple more for their bits (e.g. double needle) I saw a picture of a 320k. This was the free arm version of the 319! Only about 5,000 of these were ever made, and I think most of them must have come to Australia. Four were auctioned last week on that auction site. I looked for over a year before finding one and bought a second a couple of weeks ago, during the 320k extravaganza of the Winter of 2014. The first one was more than perfectly adequate, but the second was listed as not working, cheap and had both the darning and straight stitch plates that mine didn't have.
Seems the only way you'll ever obtain anything as rare as these plates is to buy the machine too, so I bought a second one.
I used the first quite a bit, then when readying it for sale I made it like new again (as you do). The lady who bought it last Saturday was extremely happy with her purchase. I told her she could get her money back if she ever sold it. She narrowed her brow as if I'd just sworn at her. "I'll never sell it" she said. I absolutely love selling to people like her, who value them like I do.

I gave her one pack each of sizes 12 and 14 needles, darning foot, embroidery hoop, twin needle, the latter 3 are extremely rare.
The replacement came with a litany of problems. It had been set up for a 15x1 needle, which meant the hook timing would be out (which it was) and until re-set it wouldn't stitch properly, one of the motor brushes was broken in two, it had been re-wired wrongly so it would never have worked and someone had disassembled and reassembled the motor, but left out the part that stops the motor from flopping about and killing itself (that's what it sounded like - very loud banging as it worked). As if that weren't enough he took ages to send it and when he did, the packaging consisted of having a broken down cardboard box wrapped around the outside and nothing at all to prevent the insides from moving, so the fashion disc box was broken in transit. Miraculously nothing else was broken. After a few days of working at it, it sews quite well (although not perfect yet). Both machines were made in 1959.
Something that puts a lot of people off these Singers is that they use the 206x13 needle. Only Schmetz makes them and today they only make sizes 12 and 14. My friend's OSMG (old sewing machine guy) said that he modifies them to take a 15x1 needle. When my jaw dropped he said he doesn't change the hook timing but removes a small amount of metal from the bobbin case - the part the needle hits. Good idea, and this is the only way you could get away with using a 15x1 needle without ruining the stitch quality.
I'm now thinking of getting him to do this on a spare bobbin case and trying it out. There are no needles available for this machine if you want to sew heavy fabrics like denim (although I still have about 5 size 16s, they're not replaceable), but the machine is more than capable of handling it, so such a modification would be worth testing. Obviously I'll let you know the result.

Pyjamas for my daughter

These were from a Vogue pattern (EDIT: I lied! They were Simplicity. Number 5552 to be exact), which I just spent some time looking for (unsuccessfully). I'll edit it in when I find it.
(edited out the bit where I raved about vogue patterns - oy!). The garment was very pretty too. Here is the finished garment, modelled by my lovely child:

It was pretty easy to follow in general, and no doubt I'm becoming slowly better versed at interpreting these instructions, but the older the pattern, the more knowledge they assumed. Simply put, until about 50 years ago, most women bought patterns, fabric and notions then headed home to their sewing machine to put it all together. It wasn't a hobby, but a necessary part of life. For me it's a luxury, a hobby, but self sufficiency seems to be something I value more as I get older.

The pants were made on my VS2, the top on the 320k.
I'm now working on a pair (different design - mine are really a Vogue pattern).

Goodbye to the old, hello to the new

No, I'm not going plastic on you, good people, but the lounge room had started looking like a warehouse, with boxes stacked on cabinets and it made actual sewing (yes I still do that) really difficult. So, what should I do? Buy another machine in a cabinet of course! Two or three weeks ago (on Sunday night) someone had put an ad for a six drawer Singer cabinet in need of restoration on Gumtree for $50. Well, it looked OK in the ad, and as long as there's nothing missing I'm up for it. Yes it's shabby and yes I have no room. It lived in the back of the car for a few days. It took only a few days to get rid of the two cabinets that lived in my lounge room. My beloved 319k in lovingly restored 1960 cabinet and a model 66, which I had swapped the presser bar with a later 66 to fit side clamping feet. This brings me to what a PITA the back clamping 66 is.
The story of the back clamping goes back a bit over 100 years. I read that Singer thought it a pretty nifty idea to have the 66 as a back clamper just after they had bought the Wheeler and Wilson factory in the U.S. seeing as that's what they used.
It was a disaster, of course, and meant that the 66 had to use feet that were different to all other models, and their customers indicated their unhappiness with the back clamp. Around 1922 Singer caved in to the pressure and made all future 66s side clampers, making them compatible with, well, everything.
So every time I get a 66 it seems to be a back clamper. When the six drawer car crisis happened, I hastily converted the back clamper to use the only side clamp version I had, advertised it for a low price and of course it sold quickly. So, got the six drawer cabinet in, looked at the machine inside and it was, you guessed it, a Singer 66 back clamper! It did come with a couple of back clamp feet (which is unusual) but I'm still pretty unhappy about it.
Here's a summary of movements for the past month or so:
Out
Singer 221k featherweight (centennial, manufactured 1950)
Singer 66k in treadle cabinet (1922 - only just a back clamper!)
Singer 319k in 1960 model cabinet.

All of these seem to have gone to the right people. They were all going to see further use as sewing machines. Decisions on what had to go weren't difficult. The 319k is in a cabinet, and I have a 320k that's also in the lounge room. I did keep the cams from the 319, though. Can't understand why the 320k didn't have them, or the darning plate.

OK, now this stuff I have to rely on my memory for, because there are usually so many. In
Singer 201k treadle, original deco treadle cabinet (1946)
Singer 66k treadle, original six drawer treadle cabinet (1912)
Singer swiss zigzag attachment
Singer attachment lot (incl two more of the above, plus two buttonholers). Not arrived yet.
Singer green button hole attachment (for low shank machines, uses cams for different types of button holes) - this has not arrived yet, more than a week after I paid for it. Not happy.

Out: 66k treadle

Out: 221k Featherweight

Out: the 319k

In: The 66 - Did I mention it's a redeye?

In: The redeye's home. The top needs new veneer

Don't have a pic of the swiss zigzagger (Google it - plenty of pictures around). It has a built-in walking foot and originally came with pattern cams (I got one out of the ten), which makes it highly desirable for a straight sewing machine like a featherweight, a 201 or a 66.

Finished a dress, made with 201s and got two more machines

Can't say 201k, because the machine I started it with was a 201p (the tan one). Used the 319k for zigzag finishing seams and putting in the hook.
Here's the dress:

 It should fit her, but she lives on the other side of the planet so it might be a while before I get feedback.

Here's the machine I used to finish it. The knee lever was really hard to get used to. I kept accidentally knocking the lever and sewing the thread into a knot.
The most important thing I discovered with this project was how to pre-finish a seam: Cut the fabric out using pinking shears! If you cut it the right size, the seam edges are pre-finished and no ZZ will be necessary.
Being unable to control my sewing machine addiction meant that since last week I bought two more machines. The first was another 319k but with a free arm. It's called a 320k but identical except for the removable bed. This feature made it horrendously expensive to produce apparently, so they didn't make that many of them.
The second was a Singer 401g (I think). It was on eBay for a while and nobody bid on it. It was re-listed at the same price so I bought it. I haven't picked it up yet but am quite excited. Here are the new ones:

Quite rare Singer 320k2

Singer 401g made in Germany

There are a few problems with these two machines, being that the first one can't go into a cabinet because of the removable bed, so I'll have to sell my beautiful 319k in its cabinet. Good news is that the 401g can be treadled, so I can swap the 319k with a treadle cabinet (and free up some shed space).