Big score!

I bid on this strictly for the cabinet.  It fits well with all of my inherited furniture from my grandparent's house and it's so my style.  A winning bid of $6 brought this little beauty home to me.  It was advertised as being dirty and non-functioning with no attachments.  Here's what I found when I opened this baby up.

Hmm...wonder what I might find in those drawers?  Okay, so it's a smidge dusty and is missing a curved piece (it should be balanced on each side of the drawers).  I opened the drawers and looked inside the cabinet to find these...

Score!  All original attachments, including the quilting guide, screwdriver, Greist buttonholer, and STEEL! needles.  Not bad at all for $6.

It's a 101!

When I bid on this machine, I was blindly accepting Goodwill's assertion that it was a model 99.  Nope, it's more rare than that, it's a Singer 101.  I'm learning how hard it is to locate parts for this rare baby, so I'm not 100% certain that I'll restore it.  I may part it out instead.

I purchased it for the case originally, but found the locks won't work on my other bentwood case.  Still, it's a cool "toy" to play with and if nothing else, I'm keeping that cool, pull-chain light.

New Toy Arrived

My husband is being amazingly wonderful about my growing addiction.  This latest acquisition arrived last week and I didn't have a chance to unwrap it until yesterday.  I purchased it for the bentwood case, hoping to use the lock in my other bentwood case as this one has water damage.  Bad news is the lock isn't a match.  The good news is I think I can fix the bottom of the "new" bentwood case and use it for Black Betty if she won't fit in my latest $6 vintage machine and cabinet win.  (Pictures for that will come later after I clean it up).

The better news is I think I can get this sweet beastie restored for a friend of mine who'd like to purchase a vintage Singer.  This beauty cost me $5 plus shipping...roughly $30 total from Goodwill.  They did a great job of packing her up and she got here in one piece.

I sent them a big Thank You for such a good packing job.

This one is a knee control version (I hate the knee controls as they hit the wrong spot on my leg (I'm too tall for them).  They couldn't power her up either.  A quick check of the power cord reveals a missing locking mechanism, but these are easy enough to replace for less than $20 with updated wiring.

I love this particular light with the little pull chain.  It may get swapped over to my Crinkle machine, just because I think it's SO cool.

Some of the stencils are in really great shape.  I hope to get a good stencil pattern off of this one to make replacement stencils.

Love that it came with the metal cover (they're so often missing) and even better found original bobbins!

The knee control does work well, but the paint is pretty beat up.  Once I dig into her, I'll know if she's worth fully restoring, or would be better to part out and use as a decoration instead.  She's sitting on top of my first $6 machine with cabinet - a Kenmore 117 that I love the look of and haven't been able to part with yet.

I need to get pictures of the Violet Vixen posted as well.  She's my Kenmore 158.433 that I picked up for $14 that is missing her bobbin tension assembly.  Good news - I can still get that part.  Bad news - she has a paint chip.  I love her color though, so I may take her to a friend's brother (he has an auto body shop) to see if can mix a paint to match, or that is close enough to be worth a full paint stripping and repainting.

Cleaning Results - Vinegar

Black Betty has several plated pieces that need cleaning.  As most everyone can find, there are recommendations for using a myriad of cleaning solutions, including vague references to a baking soda/lemon juice paste (I've yet to find a "recipe" for this).  I've always had great results with vinegar on stuff around the house, so I chose to use the face plate as my test piece.  Mainly because the damage to this and the bobbin cover is identical, so it'll be a nice comparison example.

This is what the face plate looked like before a 24-hour vinegar soak.

Notice the tape damage at the top of the arc in the picture above?

Here's what it looks like after, with a very light "scrubbing" using a soft bristle toothbrush prior to a rinsing with water.

The rust popped up within a day; if I was done, I would have oiled it and not just let it air dry.  This still has a ways to go and it's getting another soak in vinegar to be followed up by a scrubbing and oiling.  The surface feels nice and smooth, so I'll be okay if it doesn't get as shiny as new.  I'm aiming for usable on this one, not perfection.  I'm anxious to get more time to put in on her, but may have to wait until I have time off at Thanksgiving.

I'm working on a good recipe for the baking soda/lemon juice solution to use on the bobbin case cover.  I'll let you know how that goes.  The brass medallion will be cleaned using Wright's Brass Cleaner - I used this during my stint as a Disneyland Cast Member and have always been pleased with the results.  I'll have pictures of the before and after on that as well.

Singer used to have a nice PDF list of serial numbers to model numbers.  It's disappeared from their site.  I asked them about it and received this back:

You can research serial numbers via our website.

Go to www.singerco.com. To the right of the SINGER 160th Anniversary emblem, click on “See More”, then go to “Learn About Your Vintage Sewing Machine”, and complete the data in each box.  This will give you a Certificate with the year your machine was manufactured.

It's kind of nice because you get this pretty certificate back, but I found the list much more useful.  I wish I had downloaded all of the PDFs they had available when I thought of it.

The Phases of Vintage Machine Addiction

I was reading over a blog that I follow, and following a link to another blog stumbled across this gem.  I'm in Phase 2 and have no delusions about Phase 3.  A fun read, hope you get at least a giggle out of it.

http://sewing-machines.blogspot.com/2010/01/sometimes-you-gotta-let-go.html

Canning Success and Vintage Machine Cleaning Tips

I've been learning to can from a friend of mine, which kind of takes time away from my vintage machine restoration projects.  But it's been a worthwhile effort.  Just this past weekend, I made my first attempt at Raspberry Preserves which came out very flavorful and yummy, and I canned up several different types of salsa.  I now have a dozen jars of salsa, a dozen jars of pickles, 4 jars of whole tomatoes, and nearly a dozen jars of Strawberry Jam and Preserves.  Here's a shot of the colorful concoctions (these went to work with me and were gone by the time lunch was over):

In addition to that, I put some Murphy's Oil Soap and elbow grease to good use and cleaned up the stains on the old Kenmore cabinet I picked up to put Black Betty in and am happy with the results.  Not so happy with the pictures though, as the before ones are no good.  I hope to post pictures of the cleaned up cabinet in a few more days, after a bit more elbow grease.

Well, I've been digging and digging and have yet to find any recommended "recipe" for the various cleaning methods I've seen out there, which I find annoying.  So, for everyone else out there, I'm going to measure my combinations of vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, and 409 and post them here with before and after shots of the results.  Even if it only helps me, it'll be worth it.

Black Betty's buttonholer attachment has been found too, along with the manual.  Here's what I've found so far, knowing that there is more somewhere in a box in my craft room.  (I still have ones to open from our move 3 years ago).

This is the correct part number for the buttonhole attachment for a Singer 15-91.  Others work as well, but this one was original to the machine.  And I really like the "Made in U.S.A." mark.

In the next few days expect to see a few before and after pictures of a couple of plated pieces after being cleaned in vinegar or a baking soda/lemon juice mixture.