I've Just Seen a Face.

I had cleaned theses gears on the 401A I bought ten days ago and was struggling to grease them from the underside of the machine when I noticed the huge hole in the side of the bed.  DUH.  I call that an I D ten T error (I D 10 T).  I ceased struggling and took a bunch of photos of the gears from this angle.  As I was editing them for the blog, I saw the face.

Or else I am just so tired that I am hallucinating.  

I bought this machine for a granddaughter.   It wasn't so terribly dirty..  Well OK the gears were terrible as you can see. The camstack and its followers were pretty gunked up too.    But the bobbin case, the race and the hook were all quite clean.  The presser bar and needle bar were pretty good too.  The motor wasn't too bad   but it was hard to get it out.  I really had to WHACK.  It refused to go back in, too.  I had to sand the long part of the motor so that it would slide in easily.

I had bought some new brushes and wanted to just put new ones in.  But the old springs did not fit the new brushes....too big.  So, instead, I held the brush by the spring (gently) with my hemostat and held a flame on the brush for about a minute.  Boy, did the oil bubble out.  Then I let it cool and wiped it with denatured alcohol.  No ozone smell to that motor, now.    I have never done that before.  I usually just wipe the brushes with alcohol and call it good.

The machine stitches very nicely despite my efforts!   It isn't a quiet as the 201.  It isn't as smooth as the 201.  It does, however, zig zag and make decorative stitches.  I made a little zippered pouch with the machine and tested each stitch.  Some of them are more pleasing than others.  Most I would never use.