THE NEEDLE IN MY MACHINE IS NOT CENTERED IN THE HOLE OF THE NEEDLE PLATE !!! WHAAAAA!

On the Featherweight model 221 or the Model 301..........and others Singer machines........ Many machines do not put the needle into the needle plate's hole in a way we may feel is perfect. Absolute dead center in the hole is not what Singer was after as they manufactured your machine. There was an "allowable tolerance" that meant that if the machine functioned, that was Singer's bottom line, things just needed to be within a working allowable tolerance. If the needle is not dead center in the needle plate's hole, sorry. You can get a very small diameter "mouse tail" file (at higher end hobby shops)and file the hole wider and away from the needle to center the needle better in a slightly larger hole. If the needle is touching one of the toes of the presser foot, this can be adjusted away. But First; check to find if the needle is bent? Using the hand wheel; withdraw the needle from the needle plate's hole and keep turning slowly until the needle is ready to reenter the needle plate. Watch the needle in relation to the needle plate hole as the needle descends into the hole. As the needle travels down, if the needle drifts closer to one side of the hole and then backs off again as you withdraw the needle you've got yourself a bent needle. If so, replace the needle. If this ain't the case, read on. Remove/open the faceplate and look at the presser bar. The presser bar is made of two parts you can see (there is a spring hiding inside), the bottom half of the bar is about a 1/4 in diameter shiny steel rod that that becomes a 3/16ths (approx) black steel rod above. This assembly of two rods runs from the top of the machine's head (inside), from the adjustable knob at the top of the head to the presser foot down under the head. On this shaft/rod/bar/assembly (let's call this the "bar" from here on) is a metal block (looks like 3/8ths X 3/8ths)that is part of the presser bar assembly and is about half way up the bar assembly. It has a set screw looking straight out at you and the block and bar move up and down with the presser bar if you lift the chrome lever hanging out the back side of the machine's head. Loosen that set-screw a tiny bit. we want the bar to be able to turn with moderate effort and not just drop as it is under moderate spring pressure pressing downward (but not dangerously so). Loosen the set-screw and as you begin loosening it the screw will kind of make a "pop" when it breaks free of having been tightened for 40 years. Stop loosening the set-screw. Reach down to the presser foot's toes at the bottom of the bar and use it like a small tiller on a small sail boat to straighten the foot out a small amount. To do this the presser foot should be lifted (the up position as in when removing your fabric from under the foot) off of the needle plate so you can get a grip on the toes of the foot/tiller to turn/twist the toes into alignment so the needle does not strike the toes any more. You might have to loosen the set-screw a bit more, but do such in tiny increments. If you have turned the foot and you think its about right, with the machine's needle centered between the toes, let the foot down gently onto the needle plate and the slots for the feed-dogs will act as a guide to confirm the foot is aligned with the the feed dogs and they are no longer angled across them slightly. If things look good, tighten the set-screw again. Or keep fiddling. As you loosened the set-screw; the presser bar may have dropped down to the needle plate because the set-screw was loosened a bit too much. Not to worry, we'll reset that. Internally, within the two part presser bar, is a spring that will encourage the bar to drop. If the set-screw was loosened a bit too much (which never happens to me) tighten the set-screw ever so little so the bar resits being turned but can be turned with a little effort. Go get a pocket book and and open it to about page 150, which will be about 5/16ths of an inch of pulp including one of the covers. Measure it so we are fairly accurate. 5/16ths of an inch. You don't need to buy a dial indicator, just a ruler will do fine, but try to be accurate, within reason. With the presser foot lifted; put the pocket book's 150 pages (w/cover) under the presser foot. If you need to force the book to get it under the foot; loosen that set screw centered in the metal block ever so little, and twisting the bar by the presser foot's toes, pull the bar up or down as needed within the block until the book just fits under the foot. Turning the bar by the foot's toes will help the bar move within the block and once it turns it can now move up and down within the block with relative ease. The foot should be resting (not pressing firmly) on the pages of your book and not hovering above the the pages. If you have had to twist the toes of the foot to get the bar to move up/down within the block you may find the foot will be crooked again and you will do the juggling act of aligning the foot and not letting the bar drop down next. The secret is how tight is the set-screw. The bar must be able to be turned within the block but not loose. If you have something that is 5/16ths of an inch thick and it is easier to work with than a book, use it. I made a "Go-No-Go gauge" (it "fits of it don't") of 5/16ths thick Plexiglas to do this with, but I work with a lot of machines and I don't know if this is a practical thing to make for yourself out of any material if you have but one machine to work with. The foot doesn't go out of alignment very often. I prefer to use a gauge as it is so hard to read a book with the presser foot pressing down on the pages as I work, and turning the pages is just plain problematic.

Touch-up paint for a white (pale celery) Featherweight

I was letting my mouse wander freely through eBay today and noticed several things of interest. Somehow my mouse went directly to "Featherweight 221" I am Always interested in the "RARE" machines, AND THERE ARE SOOOOO MANY RARE MACHINES" on eBay. I really must do some research as I swear I NEVER KNEW THERE WERE SO MANY "RARE MACHINES" AND I must have about 30 of those same machines. I'M WILDLY RICH!!!! There was another machine that kind of looked like a Featherweight, I mean, it had a needle and it had a hand wheel. It must be quite good as the title of the auction stated "MADE IN CANADA AND IT DOES ALL THE THINGS A FEATHERWEIGHT DOES. Now there's a commendation. $89 plus $36.00 for shipping "as it is a heavy Featherweight." Another was a person who was selling touch-up paint for Singer model 301's. Brown ones. A one ounce bottle was going for $18, but it had a brush in its cap! If you have a white (pale celery) Featherweight with paint chips there is a solution. I will assume you have a copy of my book "The Featherweight 221 and I". In the last half of the book I go into repairing chips in the paint of a Featherweight and although I was talking of a black machine, it goes the same way with the celery white machines. In basic you clean the hole in the paint that is the chip and fill the chip with paint, NOT IN BRUSH STROKES, but dip into the paint in the tubes I will describe and let a drip/drop of paint touch down and fill the hole a little more than flush. That's not the issue here, I want to tell you the formula for the color so you can make a very acceptable mix that will not disappoint. At better automotive shops (for some reason, not NAPA) you can buy tubes of Dupli-Color automotive (lacquer based) touch-up paint that comes in a tube that looks like a short felt-tip pen in a blister pack hanging on a peg. You need two at about $7 each. The first is "Pure White", part number NG GM 387. The second is "Dark Green", part number NG GM 517. Shake the tubes of paint to mix them and open the new tube of White paint and open the dark green as well. I make a point out of "a new tube of white" so we have a known amount of paint in the tube when we mix the color we are going for. From the Dark Green tube take 16 drops of paint and add it to the white paint. The process is like this; with the white tube open, open the green and using the green tube's brush, mounted on the inside of the cap, dip deep into the green and let the paint run down the brush and drip into the white paint. 16 times. Do not cross pollinate the brushes, keep the white paint white and the green brush green. Only when you have acquired your 16 drops of green paint and put them into the white paint can you put the white paint's brush back into the white paint's tube. (read these words a few times and it will make sense), seal it up and shake the fool out of it. There is a weight within the tube that will thunk up and down mixing the paint for you. Before you use your paint, shake it to mix it well BUT LET IT SIT QUIET FOR AN HOUR BEFORE APPLYING IT. Shaking the paint tube will mix air into the paint that we pros call bubbles. If you let it set for an hour the bubbles rise to the top and pop, a process we pros call p................... You can apply a little of your touch-up anywhere on the base of the machine and check the color mach. You can wipe the touch-up paint off with a little lacquer thinner or acetone on a rag and you will not damage the paint on the white machine. DO NOT GET LACQUER THINNER OR ACETONE NEAR ANY OF THE BLACK LETTERING ON THE WHITE MACHINES BASE OR ARM/LIGHT SHADE AND DO NOT WIPE THE ALUMINUM BAND AROUND THE MOTOR. For those having a black machine as well, DON'T WIPE THE FINISH WITH AN ACETONE/LACQUER THINNER SOAKED RAG, EVER, except to remove the paint from a black machine. NOW YOU'VE GOT A FULL OUNCE OF PAINT FOR $14 WHICH MAKES THE FELLOW ON EBAY not LOOK look so odious, EXCEPT MINE IS A PERFECT MATCH, says the color blind man who is writing this. Say goodnight, Dave Goodnight.

This one I cannot just keep to myself.

I received this email the other day and I think I read it fifteen times in a row. I love it and wanted to pass it on, with permission, nuff said. Dear Dave and Sharon, I have a story to tell you about my Singer 221. I married my husband in September, 1959 in Cleveland when I was 18 and he was 22. By January, 1960 he had been transferred to Baltimore, MD. We were poor as church mice so having children wasn't something we could do right away. We decided that we should have our first child by our second anniversary. BUT, I told him I couldn't have a baby until I had a sewing machine! Another young wife in our apartment building was making slipcovers for her sofa out of naugahyde. Remember that heavy, heavy fabric-backed fake leather stuff? She was using her mother's Featherweight to do it. I wanted a Featherweight. My husband was in Naval Reserves and in talking to a fellow sailor on his once-a-month duty weekend, he found that sailor's day job was working in a Singer store (yes, there were such things in 1960). When he jokingly told the man about my ultimatum, the man said, when we were ready to buy, call him and he'd take a brand new machine out of the box and put it in the display window. He'd then be able to give us a 5% discount. When my husband got home from that weekend he told me what his fellow sailor had said. I could hardly wait until we saved enough money to go down to the store and take MY Featherweight home. It wasn't long before I was sewing my maternity clothes, then all the toddler clothes and my wardrobe on my trusty Featherweight. Over the years I've maintained my Featherweight carefully, even when I had other machines for my quilting. When I went to classes where I knew I would only be doing straight stitching, my 221 always was my go-to machine. It sews a much better stitch than my other machines. I love it! Thanks for being there and carrying on the love affair with the Singer 221s. I'm glad you understand my passion for my machine. Denise of Leesburg, FL

CORROSION ON THE ATTACHMENTS WE CHARISH

I was asked what to do with corrosion on the attachments that came with our Featherweights? I've gone so far as to sand blast the attachments. Where the corrosion was the sand blasting removed it but it took it down to bare metal also ready to rust and they did not look very good. But the main problem was that the sand of the sand blasting process, we used a very fine grade "medium" (as it is called), will get into everything and I still can't get the rufflier to work without grinding and grating. There are parts of the ruffler that can be removed by removing a screw or two and this will give you access you didn't have as a complete attachment. Use your digital camera in its macro-function (close-up function)and get a picture of what you took apart to help put that puppy back together, or is a thing that is common to me alone. Steel wool in a four ought grade (0000) will do a pretty good job where you can reach the corrosion. Navel jelly doesn't do what we desire, it will leave a pitted surface that isn't much of an improvement over what you started with, but it isn't reddish any more!, it's more like black. There are small rock tumblers sold (harbor Freight) that with a fine garnet based medium (or sand box sand)will clean the attachments and remove a lot of the corrosion but the cost will be about $40 if you do not have the small rock tumbler plus the medium and you could buy three replacement attachment sets on eBay for that. If you use the rock tumbler you must use enough medium to pretty well fill the tumbler with your attachments added. You do not want the contents to tumble without sufficient sand falling onto each other causing damage. They slide about in the sand and gently abrades the corrosion off. Then clean the fool out of the attachment to get the medium (grit, sand) out of them and oil them. Even the parts without moving parts will like a film of oil to prevent rust in the future. Any method you use will leave your attachments prone to rust so don't leave them in the bathtub any more. The best thing I've done to come up with a great set of attachments is to look for a replacement in good condition. The main cause of corrosion in our attachments is the same cause that made the and make a Featherweight case and machines smell not so pretty good. Newer designs in machines came about and people wanted the new machines that zig-zagged and had six other built-in stitches as well. Our Feathers were relegated to the basement or the shed and after 20 years of "temperature controlled storage"..............well.......... From the methods above I would suggest the four ought steel wool (0000)for most applications. I would suggest the use of a rubber glove on the hand you hold the steel wool in as you can get very fine slivers that will bug you.

This is exciting, to me at least!!!!

    I paint Featherweights and am familiar with the prepping of a Featherweight for paint and the application of the paint. As with any paint project of importance, careful, attentive preparation of the surface to be painted is imperative if you want good results. If you are thinking of painting a Featherweight I believe a brief understanding of the paint on our machines is in order. Few really know what the paint is and not knowing can have you looking in all the wrong places. It is not japanning (small j and two "N"'s) and it isn't powder-coating, which wasn't invented until the 1980's.
    This I know. The aluminum castings of our Featherweights were cleaned and prepared for paint and a special black enamel paint was applied. I refer to this as being "special" because it is a paint designed to be baked-on to the surface of the machines in an oven that is not unlike the pizza ovens of today, just bigger. This oven has a metal conveyor belt that went through a four-hundred and twenty degree "hot-box" and deposited the freshly baked enamel painted castings in a cool-down room waiting for the "transfers" (we call them decals now) to be applied.
    Once the transfers were applied a top-coating of clear "four-pound cut" shellac was applied to protect the decals and impart the bright shine we all love about Featherweights.
    If you paint a Featherweight you will need to remove this shellac top-coating and the removing has to be done well, throughly even. Some, especially those who have never done it before, advocate using a sandblaster to "strip" their machine's paint. Don't! You will not like the cost nor the collateral damage. I did have a machine sandblasted once so I could show students that our Featherweights really are made of aluminum, and that machine's shafts have never turned again without grinding and crunching. Paint strippers (cans of caustic goo) work, but it is a long and ugly process, and don't get any on your hands or clothes.
    If you read my last blog (you should know better than to come back) I told of getting "the smell" out of a Featherweight by washing out the inside of the machine using hand dish washing soap, warm water, bottle brushes and someone else's tooth brush. Please go back to that last blog for details.
   In that blog I told of wrapping the motor in plastic food-wrap and avoiding getting the exterior surfaces of the machine wet. If a little gets on the outside it is OK, but don't let soapy water just flow over the outside unchecked and you are about to find out why. 
    I had a machine that needed painting and it had "the smell". I normally wash a machine just before I paint it having removed the shellac and decals already,  the old way. I want to get the grease and oil out of the inside of the machine and the exterior oil holes so resident grease/oil cannot compromise the new paint's application. But in the last blog I was telling of cleaning "the smell" form an assembled machine's interior, so I emphasized keeping the exterior dry while you scrubbed the inside. I literally had a machine in our kitchen sink stripped of all its external parts and the sink was protected by a layer of cardboard in the bottom with a hole cut for water drainage. I was running hot water through the machine's spool pin hole working hard to get rid of a big gob of grease I had found there in the gears up top. I turned the water heat up to hot and I appled a little extra soap. Because I would be painting this machine shortly I wasn't to worried about the exterior of the machine getting wet so I was a bit sloppy while having a good ol' time, water everywhere. (those were my wife's words, not mine) And it was at this time I noticed something. The shellac was coming off the exterior surfaces that the hot soapy water was running over. It didn't happen instantly, it was taking a minute while being bathed with the hotter soapy water running over it. The shellac could be simply rubbed off with your fingers, and that which didn't came off easily could be removed with a little steel wool.
    The black baked enamel was not phased by the hot water as it removed the shellac, even from the hard to reach places. Some of you know I do not advocate removing the black baked enamel as it is a very good foundation to apply paint to, so to me this was great!
   This was so exciting that I grabbed two more machines I had waiting in line to be painted and proceeded to "get water everywhere" all over, again!! This new process really works!!!
   For those who are thinking "that it doesn't take much to get him excited" remember please that it normally takes five hours to remove the shellac from a machine and do it well, or eight if your machine was a 1937 model.
    As explained in the last blog you must dry the machine out, and no, this does not damage the machine or render it into a pile of rust. It is just neat to have found a fast way to remove the shellac, completely, in just minutes. I had done three machines in an hour and a half and all that without creating an explosive atomosphere with acetone or the like.
    This really does work! Hot water, some hand dish washing soap and maybe a little application of steel wool (two ought, 00). And oh, while you are there, wash the interior of the machine. Back to the bottle brush and not letting the wife find out who's tooth brush you are using.
    Good-night

This is not for the faint of heart, just for those with a smelly machine.

    Every now and then I get a machine that almost smells worse than the storage case it came in. Spit your gum out so you don't swallow it and don't start yelling "No Way!!!" and we'll get underway.
    There are machines that smell so bad that there is no living with them. Between cigarette smoking (by former owners (remember, when these machines were made it was almost mandatory that you smoke to be an American) and the common mildew smell, although the case might just be beyond hope the machine can be cleaned up.
    First, loosen the motor attachment screw two turns. Remove the motor drive belt and then wrap the motor with plastic food wrap snugly. Tighten the wrapped motor's mounting screw without the belt being reinstalled. Remove the drip pan from the bottom of the machine and replace the drip pad normally glued to the inside surface of the drip pan if your aim is to eliminate "the smell".
    This will remove one source, but not all sources of the smell. Remove the spool pin cover, and the face plate. Put a piece of cardboard on and fitting the bottom of your kitchen sink with a hole for water to drain through it. This will protect your sink because we are going to wash the interior of your machine using hot water, hand dish-washing soap, bottle brushes and a toothbrush, your spouse's, not yours. A half inch wide natural-bristle hobby paint brush will clean the gears well as long as we are in there.
    I already told you to spit out your gum before you swallowed it. Preheat your oven to the lowest heat setting, be that "WARM' or 150.
    Now, listen, wash out the inside of the machine and avoid running water over the exterior of the machine. Do a real job of scrubbing the interior, don't poke at it and then write to say it didn't do much. Get a bottle brush all the way down the inside of the arm of the machine as best you can and then a little and scrub. A little water will not destroy your machine but do not let the water and soap pour over the outside surface of the machine.
   If you honestly did due diligence go rinse the machine one last time. Shake the water out of the machine or blow it out, blot the exterior dry and then put the machine in your oven ( which you have preset at its lowest "warm" setting) for five minutes if you don't have a hot sunny day working for you.
     I know this sort of thing is way out beyond many of your experiences in life for some of you, but believe me, it works and it will not harm your machine.
    Do not set the machine down soaking wet and go take in a movie. Dry it out!
    Oil the machine and grease the gears.   
    Take the food-wrap off of the motor and reinstall the belt. Remember the motor belt must be as loose as possible without the motor pulley slipping.
    Your machine will not rust away, it will not destroy the machine or any other superlative you can come up with. This is not something to do each Saturday night but if you are like the woman I had in class who could not sew on her machine because it smelled so bad, this can save your day and your machine's.
    I have done this many times now and it really does work and it will not hurt your machine. I had one person take my advice and said she was not impressed but she said she was afraid to use the brushes in the machine and dish washing soap seemed so harsh. Please, if you are willing to try it, do the whole job.

Keeping your eye out for something that isn't quite...well, I don't know.

   I taught a couple of classes this last week-end which is something I love doing. It is an opportunity to see and hold yet another Featherweight. Some machines that come to class come with a problem,  or two, and some problems are new to me. That's when it begins to be fun for me. When I find something new I love saying something like, "Gee, Ive never seen something like this before" and listen to the owner swallow their gum.When you are locked-up in a room working on sewing machines all week you have to find fun where you can get it. They don't let me out often.
    The machine in question was not sewing so pretty good. It puckered the fabric between each and every stitch and the fabric was very hard to pull out of the machine at the end of a line of stitching. When you pulled the fabric out of the machine, or if you pulled on the bobbin thread as it came up through the needle plate it was much harder to pull on than it should have been. So I said to myself, I said, the bobbin tension is set much too high so I coughed the bobbin case out. I got out my trusty gauge to test the bobbin case tension and the gauge said it was spot-on at 2.5 grams. I put things all back together and it still did not sew correctly.
    I had noted that the bobbin within the bobbin case was black which was unique and it was of a one-piece construction as having been turned on a lathe rather than made from separate parts pressed together into an assembly. When I put the bobbin back into the case the flange of the bobbin that closed off the opening of the bobbin case stood just a little tall and it was noted that when the bobbin case w/bobbin was put into the machine it took a bit more pressure than what seemed normal to get the bobbin case to snap into the hook assembly, yet still without having to use a hammer.
    The bobbin we were working with turned out to be a bobbin made for an Elna sewing machine of the 1930's. If you lay a Featherweight bobbin case on a flat surface beside the Elna bobbin, the Elna was about a sixteenth of an inch taller which made the bobbin stand proud and drag within the bobbin carrier and resetting the tension wasn't the answer at all. If not laying side by side for comparison the two bobbins looked just alike.
    I had looked at the bobbin within the case when I first took the bobbin case out and had commented to myself, "myself, that's odd" and just let it slide.
    When you see something that doesn't seem just right, and you've got some little nag of a problem, look harder at what seemed "a little strange" and think the strange and the nag through together as if they may be related. It is interesting how many FW problems have been corrected by thinking through something "just because it initially didn't look quite right."