SINGER 401 OR TAKING THE PLUNGE

The Singer 401 is a wonderful machine.  One of Singer's finest.  The needle bar does have a tendency to get stuck from dried oil and dirt.  This will prevent the needle bar from swinging back and forth to accomplish the zig zag stictch and other variations.

It is very easy to fix.  Heat and oil are your friends here.  And you may need to move the needle bar back and forth manually many times.  If you get tired, do it some more.  A hair dryer works wonders at loosening the old dried oil.  Be sure to apply new oil and use the good stuff; Tri Flow

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.

Sewing machine insanity

Betsy came over Friday afternoon.  We had some WORK to do. 

 I was determined to get the 401 stitching and she wanted me to look at the motor on her Signature.   The motor was sparking.  I told her a little sparking is normal.  This was not a little sparking.  It was A LOT of sparking.  And we found out why.  That is bare wire, there.  Yes sir, it is.

 This motor ran backwards and Betsy took it apart and turned something around so that it would run forwards.  I am still not clear what she did. But in so doing, she positioned the motor leads in such a way that they rubbed on the armature.

When I first looked at this, I said " Nope, buy a new motor."  Clearly someone else had been inside that motor.  That electrical tape was not factory installed.

The pretty blue motor casing is just too sweet.  We did not want to give up.  So she set about taking that tape off and I went to work on the 401.

I had determined that the 401 needed a new bobbin case.  We had one from a 500 that I knocked over when I fell off of a broken chair a few weeks ago at Betsy's.  I put it in the 401 and it stopped breaking thread but the tension was all wrong on the zz.

As we worked, we would "supervise" each other's projects.  I kept giving her "tips" on the electrical and she would peer over my shoulder as I adjusted the bobbin tension.  Finally, we switched.  I took over the soldering and she took over the 401.

I got the thing soldered and she fixed the 401.  As it turns out, I was having so much trouble because I did not have the presser foot presser firm enough.  Go Figure.

We still were unable to get the motor back together correctly.  It runs, like a champ.  But somehow the mounting holes don't line up unless we twist the housing in such a way that the motor leads will rub on the commutator.

We learned.  And this wonderful machine will become a treadle