Marla's Great Find

When I was at church last night, several people told me I needed to talk to Marla because she had something to tell me. One man kinda spilled the beans when he said she found a sewing machine that was a P-F-A-F-F, not taking a chance on pronouncing it. Marla got the deal of the day when she found a Pfaff 1042:

Pfaff Hobby 1042

Everything seemed to be moving but there was no power cord/foot control with it so she couldn't test it. She asked me to take it home to see if it ran and if it would be worth the money to buy a new set of cords. I was pretty sure I could help her so I took it home to see what was what.

Looking at the pins for the plug end I thought I had a Janome with that cord configuration:

KS-1206, YDK TW

I plug it in and she works but doesn't sound too good. Dry? Probably, so I take off the cover on the left and find LOTS of dust and fluff from the typical process of sewing. After cleaning it out and oiling the moving parts, I now go to the bobbin area. It's a match for the needlebar in how much dust has accumulated but now it's a bit on the oily side. Many more cotton swabs were sacrificed but it's now clean and get oiled, too. With a new needle and all threaded up, I start to sew. With no adjustments here's what I get:

The Pfaff 1042 is a mechanical sewing machine so it doesn't sound particularly melodic but it's smooth and strong. With the nice variety of stitches, including stretch stitches, it's a keeper. The only thing I didn't try was the buttonholer because I think I need to see the instructions on this as it's just a bit different. Marla has already found a free manual and knows the cost of a new set of controls so all I needed to to was confirm it would be worth the additional $25 investment.

Marla's one happy woman and told me she wanted to keep it and see what she could sew. I know she has grandchildren that are about the age where they might like to make a pillowcase or something easy like that and now she has a great little machine she can easily store, transport, and set up. It's not vintage but it's not too bad either. Congratulations, Marla on your thrift store find!