Am I sad?

No, not really.  Last week when I checked the Asheville CL in preparation for my return trip I saw a FW(Singer 221) listed.  I figured if it was still listed when I got here I would check it out.   Two days ago I saw that it was.   I was encouraged and thought that maybe I would be able to fetch another machine while I was here.  Today, the day I was ready to call about it, the listing was gone.  Saved from myself.  The photo was lousy and I don't honestly remember if it included the "box" but I think it did.  The only reason I considered it AT ALL was because its commission date was 1953.  I sort of thought it would be cool to have a sewing machine commissioned the same year that I was born.  Oh yeah, I also had a dream that it included the penguin walking foot.  DREAM ON.

Oh well.  I have three FWs and we all know I don't need yet another sewing machine.  In fact, I would like to unload about three more 201s, a 403A, a 404A, a 319W, a couple of 66s (Red heads) and some Kenmores.  I have a Pfaff  230 I really need to service and get out the door along with a Riccar that I am willing to practically give away.  There are definitely some boat anchors that I can scrap, as well.

"Scrap is 280 a ton, honey" I was informed.

But I can't stop looking.   Is it a sickness? 

Singer 221: How to remove the bobbin case base

Rose emailed me about her Singer 221 (aka Featherweight).  She turned the hand wheel backwards and it is all bound up.  I told her I thought it might have a thread lock.

There is a free adjuster's manual available on line.  If you go to my resources page and scroll down to the link about FW you will see it.

First remove the needle plate.  Betsy is demonstrating this.  I like to use the Brownell bit set.  She, however, is a fan of the long shaft screw driver.

Now the proverbial finger of the bobbin case is released from the position bracket on the needle plate.  When you replace the bobbin case base be sure it is positioned correctly with the finger nestled in the position bracket. (This is a 301, it is the exact same concept though the parts are not necessarily interchangeable)

Loosen the gib screw that holds the gib in place and rotate the gib outward.

 Now you will be able to turn the bobbin case base clockwise a bit and lift it out

If there are threads locked in behind the hook, that will be another post.

SHE DID IT !!!!!

Here it is folks, Betty's 221 motor.  She did it all by herself.  Isn't she clever?  This all started with an email that she sent me with a couple of photos. 
 If I had been using my Dell Laptop then, instead of my MacBook Pro I would have been able to save and enlarge the photo and probably have been able to see that her concern was over the thicker insulation on the two wires.

Well, she did it she got her motor off and was able to figure out what the heck that was.  Of course, hind sight is always 20/20 vision.  I learned something and she did too.  She learned that she can take a motor off of a Feather weight.  Ain't this hobby The Best?

This one is for Betty. Singer 221 Motor

I had an email from a very nice lady in Maine about her Featherweight.  She had some questions about the wires to the motor.  I suggested that she take the motor off to inspect the wires.  I assured her she could do it and promised that I would post photos of how I did this tonight.  Here they are.

First I took off the bottom by unscrewing the thumb nut

This revealed the bottom and the wires.  Whoa  this bottom is wet.  Guess I had better clean it up some.  Clearly I used too much oil.  Good thing I am doing this.....I have circled the motor wires clamp.  I loosened  this.

 I released the motor from the base of the machine first thing. But I think that you could wait and do that last.  It flopped around a bit when I was messing with the wires on the bottom of the machine. I unscrewed the motor position screw all the way and removed the motor from the machine

And then put that screw right back in its hole on the motor.

I then freed up Mr Three Pin Terminal

And released the motor wires from it.  The nuts on the back of Mr. TPT did not release all that easily by hand.  I gently loosened them with a pair of small pliers wrapped in leather.  The motor is connected to terminals 2 and 3.  The red lead goes to  #3.  You can almost see the red thread in the cloth cover of the motor lead here.  Almost.  And oh my, I guess that is glue holding Mr. TPT together, now isn't it?  Oh the things you learn about the machine.  I wonder how that broke?

Once the leads were released from Mr. TPT, I put him back in place.  I hate losing parts.   I did remove the motor clamp completely at this point and stretched the motor leads out gently.

 Then I gently maneuvered  the leads through the hole in the base of the machine. I pulled one through at a time.  Since #2 is slightly shorter, this worked out ok.  I was VERY gentle.  I did not want to hurt these 60 year old wires.

 I put the motor wire clamp back in its place and put the bottom back on the machine.  I did check one of the brushes.  It looks ok.  But peering into the brush holder I could see that the commutator is kind of dirty.

I  guess I can service it on Wednesday.  The #2 motor lead has some exposed wire on its end.  I think that is ok since it doesn't touch anything else on Mr TPT.  When I put the thing back together I will double check.

This whole operation took me less than 30 minutes.  I am not an expert.  This is simply how I got the motor off of this machine.  I realize, as well, that this post is very similar to a previous post.  But I wanted to go through this process, step by step for Betty, in Maine.  She is up there trying to figure these machines out solo.  I, at least, have Betsy and had the chance to take the Ray White class.  So any help I can offer, I am glad to.

Featherweight motor; Singer 221 motor

 This post is how I serviced a Featherweight motor.  I am not an expert.  This is the first time I have serviced this type of motor.  I offer, here, my experience in the hope that it will help.  I have the adjuster's manual for this machine but the photos are dreadful and dark.  

First thing: I got the  motor off the machine.  When I checked out this project last weekend I resisted.  Looking under the machine at the wiring deterred me.

That big white wire is the lamp wire.  It is encased in lead and the white stuff is oxidized lead flaking off and it flakes off everywhere.  I resisted following Rain's suggestion to remove the lamp wire and scrub all that stuff off.  I wish that I had just done it.  I am going to do that next.  YECH.

So anyway, I just did not want to delve into this motor work because of these wires.  But I had to.  So, here follows how I did it.  I did not start here, but as long as the photo is handy, I will explain that I loosened those two clamps freeing up the nasty lamp wire and the two motor leads. That allowed me some slack to work on removing the motor wires from the three pin terminal.  I left the little motor lead clamp in place right there.  I did remove it later but that is later.

To get the belt off of the pulley on the motor you have to loosen the screw that secures the motor to the machine.

See what I mean about all that nasty white stuff?

Once this screw is loosened, lift the motor up and get the belt off.  I took the screw all the way out to release the motor form the machine base.  I put that screw back into its home on the motor to keep it safe.
I then loosened the screw holding   Mr. Three Pin Terminal in place.

I gently pulled Mr. Three Pin Terminal away from the machine base to reveal the wires held in place with wire knobs.  The motor wires go to 2 and 3; color coded.  Lucky me.

The knurled knob for #3 loosened easily.  But number 2 needed persuading.  I do not recommend what I did, but it worked.  I ever so gently used my needle nose pliers to grasp the knob.  I tried at first with some cloth covering the knob for protection. Then I just went for it straight on .  It worked.  But I think it is a bad idea.  You could break those knobs.  Younger folk might have stronger fingers and not need the pliers.  Perhaps a piece of leather over the pliers would have worked as well.

Once both wires were free of  Mr. Three Pin Terminal  I fastened Mr. TPT back onto the machine.  This is when I loosened the clamps holding the nasty lamp wire and the motor wires.
I also, because I am somewhat anal, put some red tape on the #3 motor lead.  Hey, I need all the visual clues I can get.  This helped me stay organized.  I realize that the wire itself is red, but I wanted to be really really sure.  And I like marking wire with electrical tape.  It feeds my inner child.

Then I pulled the wires through the opening on the machine base and freed the motor.  I was very careful as I threaded the wires through that opening.  It is quite roomy, but I just wanted to be gentle to these 64 year old fixtures.

I then removed the brushes.  The brushes are worn down with the friction of rubbing on the commutator and they like to return home the way they were.  Otherwise the motor just has to wear them down anew.  So I marked how they came out with notes to myself on paper and taped the brush to the paper.

Here you can see the contour of the motor brush

And here you can see that I have a good half inch left on this brush.  Now I thought that I should replace these brushes as a matter of course. I had occasion to talk to Mr. Glenn Williams (http://pages.suddenlink.net/joyof301s/glenn.htm) and he advised that I leave the brushes.  He told me that of the 2800 221s that he has had pass through his hands, only three machines needed new brushes.

 I did scrub them with denatured alcohol, however.  Someone told me firing them with a blow torch works to clean them too.  I like the alcohol approach.

Next I removed the screws holding the motor housing in place

And then I shimmied the fiber insulation as far down the motor leads as I could toward the wire rings

I admit I did try to pry the motor housing apart at this point. When it  did not separate, I remembered reading about removing the pulley.  There is a set screw on the pulley  that needs loosening:

The pulley can then be removed and the housing gently pulled apart to reveal the armature and a very nifty underwriter's knot (circled)

I had to loosen that knot to gently remove the armature from the field coils.  I was VERY careful.  These motors are not cheap to replace.  They aren't making any more of them .

What a dirty armature it is.  I was very careful to secure the washers.  There is a fiber washer that belongs on the shaft near the commutator.

And two others, one a fiber washer, on the shaft at the other end of the armature. These came off when I pulled the armature.  I was lucky that I did not lose them.  Especially the fiber washer.  I have a feeling they might be hard to replace.

I cleaned the commutator with a pencil eraser and this nifty honing stick I bought from Ray White (http://www.whitesewingcenter.com/tools.php)

I love a clean armature!!!!

Once it was all cleaned I reversed the steps to put it back together.

This is a shot of the inside of the field coil.  I did clean this out gently being very careful not to disturb the soldered connections to the ends of the brush tubes

Then making sure that the fiber washer was in place I eased the armature back into the field coil.  I realize that the copper windings on this armature do not look clean.  I promise that they are.  I think that these windings, like the windings on the 201-2 motor , were varnished at the factory

 

Once the armature was back in place I gently tightened the underwriter's knot and eased the motor housing back into place. 

Then I replaced the screws.  I did have some trouble getting the screw near the underwriter's knot to slide in easily.  I had to adjust the wires some.  If I had tried to tighten the screw down on top of that wire I could have created one huge disaster.

 

Once the motor was securely reassembled, I replaced the pulley.  The pulley is held on with a set screw and the screw must sit in the flat on the shaft.  The flat is easily identified by the flat on the end of the shaft

 I replaced the brushes next being very careful to place them in the brush tubes (which I had cleaned out with a q-tip) exactly as I had taken them out.  It helped that I had taped them to a piece of paper.  I only had to pop them back in. ( I had already cleaned them with denatured alcohol)

Then I shimmied the insulation back up toward the motor and eased the wires back into the opening on the machine base.  I did fasten the motor to the machine base after I did this, just to hold things stable. 

I reattached the motor leads to Mr. TPT.  Then  I removed the wire clamp.  I tried to put the motor leads back in the clamp without removing it but it was too difficult.  There was a fiber "lining" that wrapped around the wires underneath the clamp. I really could not position it correctly without removing it and making some adjustments. 

Once I had the clamp back in place and secure, I then tightened the clamp holding the nasty lamp wire.  

It is not exactly as it was at the beginning, but it is good enough for an amateur.  I can make some adjustments and perhaps get the other "red" wire tucked up more neatly.  I have to remove the lamp to clean the lead casing so I bet that will get tighter once I have done that. 

featherweight again and the looper

We are due to renew our defensive driving course and Steven found one on line.  Thinking that would be better than sitting through 6 hours of torture, I signed up.  I had an awful time with the typing authentication.  I finally got locked out for failing the typing test.  I gave up and went out to the shop.  This Featherweight was calling me back

 I fiddled with the bobbin case base and was able to get the click click out of it.  I also honed the looper.  It had some pretty nasty needle gouges in it.

 Ray said that you only have to worry about high spots.  So I just sanded the looper and cleaned it off and put it back on the hook.  This time I paid attention to how the hook goes on the shaft and got it right, the second time.  Gee Whiz.....some things I just don't learn.

Since the hook was back on I decided to see how she ran......The motor was NOISY.   Too noisy.  So I decided to service it.  I had taken the brushes out over the weekend and peered at the commutator through the brush tubes.  I couldn't see much.  I was dreading this task.  But with that noise coming from the motor and the poor performance I knew I had to get the motor off the machine and get the armature out to clean it and the commutator.

Somehow a 221 adjuster's manual found itself on my work bench.  The other night I reviewed the section on how to service the motor.  It is not unlike the innards of a 201 motor so I figured I could do it.

First things first though.  Get the motor off the machine.  That is the next installment