Client brought me an extremely worn Singer treadle sewing machine that she wanted brought back to life if I could. We talked about the challenges with the piece (deep scratches, water damage, initials carved in the top with a heart, paint splashed on the legs and more) she understood the chances of it not being perfect but was comfortable with me "doing the best I could". Here are the pictures when I got it to the shop.
Dissembling the piece went very smooth...Singer mass produced these machines over many years and they did a fantastic job of streamlining the build. Here we have all the pieces laid out ready for repair and refinish.
I started on the metal legs, treadle mechanism and wheel. Luckily there was no rust but I needed to remove all the original brown flaking paint and some "added"splattered black paint so its shiny new black enamel could do its job. As an added feature I decided to highlight the metal "Singer" name on the actual treadle, leg brace, and the belt wheel in the original singer gold enamel. Here is a before and after on just the Metal work.
During reassembly you need to be sure that you grease all the fittings and ensure that they are torqued so to spin freely before locking them in place.
On to the woodwork now. The majority of the pieces were skinned with veneer so taking ones time with sanding out the imperfections was important for a good final product. A few spots of the veneer had actually begun to peal away from the base wood so I needed to reglue them and clamp till dry. It was apparent that the original finish Singer required of their machine cabinets could be expanded to cover all faces and interior spaces...some of those nooks and crannies are a pain to prep but I know it will be worth it later. Here are the pieces after all repairs and prep were done.
I re-stained all the pieces attempting to retain the original look of the cabinet...It is fairly difficult to perfectly match the past finish colors but with a bit of mixing and tinting you can get very close. I have seen some woodworkers out there that are masters of this process and I hold their work in high esteem...I have not reached that point in my learning as of yet. Once truly dried I fully coated all pieces (even drawer and cabinet insides with polycrylic for a enviro-friendly final finish.
After getting the cabinet back together I noticed that the bobbin rewinding wheel and the leather belt that runs the machine were so dry rotted that they would have to be replaced. Luckily, a top notch go to for vintage machine parts is right here in Loveland Colorado. A quick call to Steve's Sewing Machine Repair and I had my new parts (A+ for Steve and crew). A quick clean out of the actual sewing machine and a reoil of all the internals and she was working amazingly well and looked great.
Thanks for stopping by and I'll try to get my next project up a bit quicker for ya. Have a great day.
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