Ebay Foibles

After my last disappointment, you would have thought I would be really careful in my shopping. I don't learn too fast, it seems, because the next two machines were a bit of a struggle:

This machine was just too much of a temptation! I could get her for only $12.50 at Salvation Army right in my neighborhood. I turned her on and she seemed okay and not much of a risk. She was a bit of a mystery to me because the Singer 1425N has rubber feed dogs. Is this a good thing? Why don't they have them today? My research showed that they are a great concept for delicate fabrics but do break down in time. Mine held up great over time but they were not working too well. In our exploration of her undersides, hubby points out the feed dog gears are stripped. What? How can that happen? We make the big decision to replace them for $15 and wait for their arrival. After several hours of struggle, since we had never replaces gears on sewing machines before, they finally work. As we go to stitch it will only go in reverse so this gives us both a chuckle but that wasn't too hard to figure out and remedy.

Yet something is very wrong. It doesn't want to shift cams when the stitch dial is moved. In fact, it just seems to be frozen up. We give up and set it aside. In fact, we discover we can take the good parts from this model Singer and use on the Singer 5530 so it has a good spool pin and thread guide. Not a great save but something.

Almost a week later I discover the same machine in working order on eBay. Should I get it to see how the cams are supposed to work? Is this just more money in experimentation? Hubby encourages me to buy it if I want to solve the puzzle so I go ahead and order: just under $50. I impatiently wait for it to arrive.

It comes on time and wrapped to the hilt in bubble wrap and what do you know it even comes in a suitcase that is a great fit. A bonus not advertised! Unwrapping it is exciting until I come to the fly in this ointment. The spool pin and a thread guide are broken. That's right, the very pieces I took off the new gear machine and put on the Singer 5530. I'm disappointed but set her up and she runs perfectly, shifting cams without any effort. The seller makes good on the broken spool pin and I think the thread guide might work as it is. Here she is broken:

Now I get to set them up side by side and see what makes the second machine run so well and what could be the problem with the first one. Irreparable? I hope not but stay tuned (this is a nice sewing machine!)