Authentic Hand Cranks

The past few years I've been interested in hand crank sewing machines, my interest piqued because of the Treadle-On group and specifically, the River Rats TOGA I've been attending. When you see them in action and try one out for yourself, it's a bit hard to resist. They are generally old, beautiful, and somewhat smaller than a standard sewing machine. Up until this time I've converted a few 3/4 sized Singers into hand cranks with an after market crank:

Singer 99 with after-market handcrank added

They are not as nice but affordable and gives you a taste of this type of sewing. Then I bought a nice German hand crank and got a better one:

German hand crank in fancy wood case

The action is smooth, precise, and perfect for piecing blocks when quilting. Just in case you are not a quilter and ask "What is piecing?" as I once did, it's where you are sewing together the pieces cut out to make the whole of a block (and the blocks sewn together to make the top of the quilt, etc.). The more precise in cutting and sewing, the better your pieces fit together, look better, and you have fewer problems, at least with your quilting project. After using the German machine I had an opportunity to buy a Harris from Joe, something I wrote about in Three of a Kind. The Harris is a fairly small hand crank sewing machine and I've found it works well on the ironing board. As I cut, press, and pin with a cutting mat on my ironing board, there's room for the Harris on one end for sewing and then back to pressing. That's how I sew those block-of-the-month patterns where each block is done only once with precise directions. No multiple layers or cuts so setting it up on the ironing board works good for me.

Beloved Harris in wood case

At First Quilters last Saturday I had a request for a hand crank sewing machine so I brought an after market crank and a a Singer 99 for demonstration. As fascinating as something like that is, it's still a very heavy sewing machine, not great for travel as the woman who was interested was thinking about. When someone has a request, I start looking and the next day a child's sewing machine was for sale, a Singer model 40 hand crank:

Singer model #40 hand crank

The owner told me how much she used it as a little girl with all boys in her family: this was something all her own. Missing a needle and the case was pretty cracked up, I worked on it until she was purring again. Needles? I found some round shank industrial shorts that worked and were just lying around, waiting for the right sewing machine. The case could be taped up with colored Duck tape for a passable cover when traveling. The only hitch I can see is that it's a chain stitcher, not a lock stitch. With a chain stitch you only need a spool of thread for the top, no bobbin, but unless you secure the thread at the end it can be easily pulled out, a plus for mistakes but a minus for longevity. My research on chain stitching tells me it's more flexible and less likely to break that a lock-stitch but I'm going to have to try this one out.

Chainstitch front

Chainstitch back

With a taped up carrying case, it looks more like a child's play doctor kit:

Singer model #40 carrying case (tape on bottom side)

Even though it's a toy sewing machine, something I scoff at, this one might just be okay!

Final Cabinet Fix-Up

As we head into fall and the coming cold weather, I feel the pressure of getting the cabinet models sold and out of the garage. This means some need to have a face-lift so they can be sold and I worked on a few of them this weekend. One was a Bernina Record 730 that came in a very nice cabinet with drawers and even a pull-up thread rack. When open it looks good but the top was a mess when closed up with a big black ink stain and poor surface. I masked it with tape and plastic bags and stripped off the finish. That poor ink stain remained but it did shrink and lighten. Mahogany stain followed by two coats of polyurethane and it looks so much better:

Cabinet for Bernina 730 with refinished top

Now that was a quick fix but here's one that was long in the making but had a fairly quick finish. This Brother sewing machine below is one of my favorites with a compact cabinet and chair, in excellent finished shape but...no chair seat. I bought the wood and foam but just lacked the tools to cut the wood to size. It ended up in my kitchen for several years and I finally said "ENOUGH" and moved it to the garage. Yesterday I visited my daughter to get a grandbaby fix and brought along the chair and wood for my son-in-law to  cut for me. Eric has a great set-up in his garage and really knows what he's doing but it all goes into storage during the winter so I had to get this done now. He cut the wood perfectly and I brought it home to complete in steps:

Cabinet with Brother sewing machine looks good..

...and then you see there is no seat!

With wood cut and foam in place it's getting ready

Foam covered with a layer of batting

Fabric pulled up and stapled onto plywood in place

No sew corners, just folded

Thin wood with notched corners screwed together. Metal brackets keep it from sliding.

Seat and cushion ready for use.

It fits nice but I wish I had matched the fabric better to the machine colors but sometimes the buyer doesn't care or has their own ideas in mind and would have changed it no matter what I would have done.

Number three in the cabinet fix-up was a compact cabinet that came to me in pretty ugly form:

Green paint inside treadle-stripped out base

Inside of the door

Opened up it's clean and smooth

Green interior? It looked like someone got sick in there but the exterior wasn't too bad with just the top surface stripped and in rough shape. So with lots of sanding and cleaning up, I finally gave the interior a face lift with white paint. The cabinet got stained and polyurethane to end up like a decent cabinet:

Closed with top sanded clean and smooth

Ready for the finishing products

Opened up with inside painted

Final assembly with inside finished, door back on.

 The sewing machine itself is a well used Singer 66 that needed some attention. Because this was originally a treadle cabinet that has been stripped of the treadle mechanism, when they added the electric motor and cords it didn't really fit well. The motor block was sitting on the top surface behind the motor but I figured I could change that to under the top surface between the holes for what would have been the treadle belt. I had to extend the electrical cords so they would reach but that wasn't too difficult. Finding a set of cords and knee control that would fit into the cabinet was more difficult but I had one and got it all into place.

Bottom of the sewing machine head showing motor block placement

It's never going to be a beautiful sewing machine or cabinet but it's good in a semi-rustic way and will have many years of use left in it. It came to me pretty ugly but is leaving looking a bit rustic but not rough. I call that a win-win.

Modest little cabinet with a Singer 66 hidden inside