We were looking this machine over when, all of a sudden, my friend Betsy remembered that she had a very similar machine. She dug it out and lo and behold. It is a Touch and Sew. But an older model. A 603. With metal gears.
Maybe B.'s friend will want this Singer 603. It is a far superior machine. It stitches well, even without a cleaning.
It does not have a built in button holer. But, it has metal gears which will never need replacing.
Seems like a no brainer to me.
Looks like the 603 is a nice machine. When I pick up old Singers, I usually don't pick up the 600 or higher series. I love the 400 through 500 series probably the most.
ReplyDeleteThe Singer 603 is a no brainer IF the owner doesn't have a sentimental attachment to his/her SInger 638.
ReplyDeleteThe gears in the 600 series don't look like they'd be difficult to replace.
And once they were replaced the machine would be good as new.
Hello, I personally like the # 600 and #603 machines. Many sewers love the #401 and #500.. ( I can't stand the "Mocha" color- I learned on those). Those are excellent
ReplyDeletemachines, but there is something I love about the "self winding" bobbin.. Many people have a difficult time with them, stating they have a "birds-nest" underneath. I have
never had that happen and can't figure out what they are doing wrong (reading the directions helps). Slant needle "Professional buttonholers" or the "Touch and Sew"
buttonholer (same, different name) will produce a buttonhole which will give the most expensive Bernina serious competition. These are easily found on E-bay for a small
amount of money.The gears in the 638 are not too difficult to replace, but those machines with "plastic gears" will never be as "smooth sewing" as the older metal geared
Singer. Just turning the hand-wheel is far more difficult, as well as the fact the older motors were a "ball bearing" style as opposed to the newer cheaper "sleeve" bearings...
Happy Sewing, Richard Ransom Beman