Hi all,
Grandma
hasn’t seen much action in years so, the first thing I made sure to change was her needle. The one I took out was this one. As you can see,
it’s a bit grubby. It's also too long.
According to manuals I’ve downloaded for Grandma, she takes a 15x1 needle, the same as most modern day domestic machines. Which isn’t surprising since it was Singer who introduced the 15 class sewing machine.
Look at the size difference in this next picture. The size 15 I replaced it with is on the right.
At one time Singer was the largest supplier of sewing machines. Their designs for the class 15 were also used by Japan after World War Two. They made Singer 15 Clones as part of the reparations. These clones were sold to retail stores like Sears. Each different store had its own identity mark or badge. So the machines were also known as badged clones.
This is a Singer Clone or badged machine. It’s an Aldens and is from the 1950s.
Many other sewing machine brands adopted the size 15 model making their machines compatible with Singer accessories. Now to me, that made perfect business sense. Singer machines had a lucrative share of the market. Both directly and indirectly. The ability to interchange feet, bobbins and needles gave other brands a chance to cash in on that market.
Can’t help thinking it probably wasn’t so great for Singer. With their market share shrinking, could this have been the start of the end for Singer’s dominance?
Anyway, the needle Grandma came with isn’t a size 15. It’s too big. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a 20x1. My reasoning is, Grandma is a Singer 27. A later variation of the original VS1, the very first vibrating shuttle machine, introduced by Singer in the 1880s. Whilst the 27, and all the other versions of this model, take size 15 needles, the VS1 takes 20x1.
Grandma isn’t a VS1. She may be getting on in years, but she isn’t old enough to be from the late 19th Century. Her serial number dates her to 1912.
Freshly installed with a 15 Needle, I took Grandma for a quick spin. It was quicker than anticipated. One spin of the hand wheel and the thread broke. After what seemed an age trying to get thread through the minuscule eye in the needle, I tried again.
This time, the fabric puckered, then the thread broke.
No
matter what I did, I could not get the tension right. One minute the
thread was bunching underneath, the next, little loops were forming
on the top.
I fiddled with the adjustment screw on the bobbin. Altered the tension on the tension discs. When that didn’t work, I put the old needle back in. Messed with the tension again, put the new needle in. And repeat. Over and over again.
The thread kept breaking.
Nothing helped. I was beginning to think Grandma was beyond salvation. Doomed to an eternity as a doorstop. Or worse.
A garden ornament.
Until I remembered something about Singers.
If all the working parts are there – the machines will sew. That’s how they were designed. Robust, easy to maintain and just as easy to troubleshoot. They are practically bulletproof.
Heck, this old dear’s last owner had her sewing with the wrong sized needle! So why wasn’t she sewing for me? Even with a nice, shiny new needle?
Grandma’s problem wasn’t her tension.
It was mine.
Something I was doing was wrong.
I was getting tense. The more I fiddled, adjusted and reset, the tenser I was getting. Actually, I was fixing to throw a fit. Or Grandma out the window.
Did you know that throwing something out of a window has its own word? No? It’s defenestrate.
I was going to defenestrate Grandma.
So I did what any petulant child would do when Grandma is driving them nuts. I walked away. OK, if I'm being honest, it was more like stormed off.
Embracing my inner teenager, I shut the world out by smacking my headphones on my ears and watched some YouTube videos.
On
treadle machines obviously. I found this one by The Masquerade particularly helpful.
I’d only watched the first minute or so when the woman in the video said something that made me drop everything and run back to Grandma.
It was so simple! Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
Instead of having the needle with the flat side to the right. I’d fitted it with the flat side to the left. It was the wrong way round!
Doh! Face is well and truly in palm.
I guess I’m still struggling with my left and rights. I can see this being a recurring theme.
Now
that Grandma’s needle is the correct way round, she’s sewing like
a champ.
With
all threats of becoming garden art firmly behind us, Grandma and I
stitched our first treadled project together. We made face masks.
In fact we made three in half the time it took to make one on my modern machine. That’s a big high five for vintage! Way to go Grandma!
There’s room for improvement on my side. I’m still catching the odd pedal backwards here and there. Grandma is very forgiving though so we’ll work out the technical hitches together.
Bye for now
Olly
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