First Alternative Method - Cleaning the 1923 66-1

I've received tips on different methods for metal bits on the machines (rather than just dremelling the heck out of everything).  Since the 1926 66-1 was already sitting in the middle of the kitchen, I thought, "Hey! let's have some fun."

I'll start out with some before pictures.  Even though I got the machine in really great shape, there was fluff balls, lint and grunge a plenty.

I took dozens of photos, but now that I'm writing this I don't think I'll post them all. I think this one catches most of what you need to see as far as the ick level.

Taking the machine apart was the usual pain in the rear when dealing with a 66.  Once again, the arm rock shaft and arm shaft stayed in.  Initially it also looked like I wasn't going to be able to get anything out of the needle bar or presser bar assemblies.  The presser bar holder was really well stuck on.

Keeping in mind the really good condition of the decals, I wanted to avoid doing anything ham fisted.  I didn't want to be "That Guy".  I could just see the forum conversations.
- Do you remember, that guy?
- Which guy?
- You know, that one that had the 66 with the near perfect scroll graphics.  He was trying to get his presser bar out and raked the center decal off with a screwdriver or something.
- Oh yeah, him.  Poor bastard.  Whatever happened to him?
- Last I heard he was selling plastic machines at Cheapmart.
- Shudder
So yeah, I was a timid little bunny with this thing.

Anyway, on the to cleaning.  I don't have any Sally's recommended Orange Goop yet, so I went with John from Victorian Sweatshop's recommendation.  Washing soda.

The recommendation was one tablespoon per cup of hot water.  I used a casserole dish as my cleaning tub.  I filled it with 8 cups of water that I had boiling in a kettle.  If you do this be sure to spread out the soda before you pour the water.  The first batch I just piled the soda in and it took some stirring and squashing to get it all to dissolve.  Spreading it out one the second batch made things much quicker.

You start seeing results almost instantly.

John stated he gives his parts a five minute dunk and brush.  I'm kind of pokey when I clean so it took me about an hour to clean all these parts you see.  To keep the water warm I set the burner on low simmer.

Remember, you are working with scalding hot water.  Don't stick your fingers in this!  I used a spoon to fish out parts.  Also the label warns that soda is an irritant.  I went bare handed and didn't feel any negatives, but I was also washing my hands every few minutes just to keep from over-saturating my skin with the stuff.  Also if you are going to use a brush, which I highly recommend to get things really clean, be sure to have something over your eyes. I'm sure this stuff would burn like the dickens with the soda and grunge if it got into your eyes.

Here's what came off the first round of parts.

That's a lot of dirt.  This methods is definitely going into the rotation.

Though I didn't have the Goop, I still used part of Sally's recommendation.  After washing everything I put the parts in the oven for about half an hour at  250 degrees to dry them out. 

Washing didn't completely replace dremelling.  There were still a few spots that needed some brushing.  Here's some shots, post washing and post dremeling.

Parts that seem to benefit from the post wash dremmeling are parts with rust on them and, for some reason, parts that have been touched alot.  Like thumb screws.  Not sure why that is.

On the rust it's fairly evident that the soda just doesn't break down rust.  On the touched parts, I'm guessing that it has something to do with the oil left when they are touched.  It might be my brush was just too soft and I needed to be a little firmer.

As you can see in the photos, things like the screws that were in good shape, not touched and not rusted don't appear much different between washing and washing+dremelling.  I'm guessing well over 3/4 of parts will just require a quick bath.  The parts that do need dremeling, now just require just a couple of quick passes to knock off whatever is left behind.  My time on the Dremel has gone down from days to less than an hour.

After the dremelling I used some Mother's polish on the nickle plating as always.  I'm not even bothering with experimenting with the other metal polishes at this point.  Mother's has out performed everything else I've tried, so I'm just going to stick with it now.  You would think I would have learned that lesson 35 years ago when I first started using Mother's, but I keep having to check to see if there is anything else out there as good.  Nope.

I put the machine back together last night then as a lark I decided to try to get the presser bar holder off again.  Guess what.  It all but fell off in my hand this time.  Weird.  I had tried cranking (nervously) on it for about half an hour the day before and it wouldn't budge.  Then without any tools or great pressure I gave it a twist and the thing started sliding.  I hadn't even put oil on it.  I guess it just saw its friends all pretty and shiny and decided it wanted in on that as well.

So into the bath goes the presser bar/needle bar/take up cam parts.

Okay, quick lesson learned time.  Can you guess?  Yes!  Paint does not like this method of cleaning.  Well undamaged paint doesn't mind it so much.  But if you have chips, the soda will get under them and make them worse.  I wanted to verify this going in, and since I have spares for the hand wheel and bobbin winder frame I decided to play mister science guy and see what would happen.  Nothing good.  Well a little good.  They are clean, but the paint is worse for the wear.  I'll try to find some black touch up at some point.  So be warned.  THIS STUFF EATS JAPANNING.

I was so excited that I was able to get the presser bar out that I raced through the cleaning and didn't take a lot of photos.  So we'll jump right to the finished product.

I'm happy.  A lot of work for a 66, but the results are worth it.  As you can see the needle bar cap didn't come out.  Once again, avoiding being "That Guy", I gave it a couple of tentative taps then backed off.  I'm not even going to try to use the Dremel on it in place.

The vast majority of dremelling time was spent on the hand wheel.  Most of the plating was gone and it had a lot of rust.  Someone was naughty and wore her rings while sewing I think.  Marge from your Singer Sewing Center would not be happy.  Definitely a few nights in the box for that.

Oh yeah, in the extras when I bought the machine was a spare green Simanco tire.  Nice.

I'm really happy the presser bar holder decided to play nice.  I would be kind of bummed if I had a clean machine, except for...

I snipped some red felt off a spool cushion to get the race wick back in good working order as well.  A slick hook is a happy hook.

The biggest annoyance with this is, as you can probably guess.  The dag blasted arm rock shaft.  Ugh, makes me want to go clean a 15 just so I can say.  "See! This is how it's supposed to work."

Okay, maybe that's a little harsh.  I mean I could have pulled the cone bearing, and worked it to the side and gotten the Dremel onto the bottom of it and then gone through the side cover to clean a bit of the top, but again, I was really timid about doing anything that would require spinning metal near the decals.  So I'll live with it.

Now all the cleaning in the world doesn't make a spit of difference if the sewing machine doesn't sew.  Well that's where this one gets interesting.  On the 1916 66-1 I eyeballed the timing and set the hook to pass just behind the eye of the needle on the needle's upstroke.  Pretty standard timing.  This one hated that.  It made stitches just like it was supposed to, but it made a mess of the tension.  And like a goof I was sure it couldn't have anything to do with "my timing".  So I spent a good hour monkeying with the tension of both the spool and bobbin with poor results.

Finally I opened everything up and watched the goings on.  It was pretty apparant right off the bat that the hook was catching the loop very late in the circuit.  Probably about a mm to spare.  That meant that it was dealing with a limited amount of thread to begin with and when it pulled it to wrap around the bobbin, things got really tight.  You could actually hear the thread make a plucking sound and it snapped free from the hook.  So I backed the timing up so the hook caught the thread earlier in the upstroke.  The tension problems evaporated and the thread plucking ceased.  I'll probably keep fiddling with it to find the perfect spot, but for now it's making quality stitches once again.

I'll finish with a couple of side by side before and afters.

Thanks for reading.