A Quick Drive (7 hours) to Pick Up an 1879 New Family

Once having the Improved Family of course I began looking around for a New Family.  My search ended rather quickly.  A couple in upstate New York posted one from 1879 on Craigslist for the princely sum of $65.

After driving to Lexington, KY for the IF, a quick 400 mile jaunt was child's play.  I dropped our son off at school at 7:30am, played in Hartford rush hour traffic for a bit, arrived to pick up the machine at 11:30am and was back to pick the boy up by 3:20pm (about an hour late).

When I tell people about driving around hill and dale to retrieve old treadles, everyone assumes I'm going out in my pickup to get them.  When I say "no, I use the Prius," I'm always asked how you get a treadle into a little car like that.  Here's how:

It takes about five minutes to take a treadle apart and in a pinch I think I could fit two in the Prius.

The boy and I got the parts lugged upstairs and cleaning began right away.  We are officially out of room everywhere but the kitchen.  So I plopped the base and table in the center of the floor and broke out the cleaner.

  I've picked up some treadles that needed cleaning in the past.  But this one was in a whole other league.

It had generations of dust bunnies

I started cleaning the irons with 7th Generation multi-surface cleaner, it was woefully under strength for the task.  After seeing the muddy streaks left behind, I switch to Lysol with hydrogen peroxide.  Much better results.

As for adjustments, the flywheel was still nicely in tune.  The pedal had a bit of slop in it.  Happily none of the bolts, nuts or cone bearings were siezed, so making adjustments wasn't a problem.

This is my first 8" flywheel machine, so of course I have to document that as well.

When you buy a treadle belt nowadays you get one that is around 6mm in diameter.  Not this guy.  The belt on it is 8mm.

The belt is old, not sure how old.  The providence on the machine is vague.  The last owner bought it from an antiques store not too long ago.  They did find an envelope with sewing notions addressed to Miss Elsie Oatman that was postmarked in November 1928.  I'm thinking the machine was in use then.  Elsie died in the late 1960s, so maybe she was the last to sew on it.

I'm pretty certain the last owner never sewed on it, and may have sold it thinking it was not operational.  They had put a 15x1 needle, oriented with the eye sideways in it.  The NF takes a 12x1 needle oriented front to back.  They had also used a 27 manual to try and figure out how to thread the bobbin in the shuttle, completely skipping the tension holes and instead wrapping the thread around the guide spring.  I can't see this configuration ever making a successful stitch.

The good news is the wood is in very nice shape and the drawer/top key was included.  I haven't found a ding or gouge yet.  All I did so far was give it a wiping with Fornby's.  It's added to the list of the wife's refinishing projects once she has time.  Probably once she retires she'll have some free time.

A quandary I'm having with the Improved family is that there is no support for the drop leaf.  I've gone over it time and again and can't find any evidence of a support bracket ever having been installed.  I am left thinking that possibly the cabinet was repaired at some point and the bracket was never put back on.

When I first was taking the New Family apart, I didn't see any drop leaf support either.  Once I got it upside down in the car I saw this neat little lever.

I did run back over to the IF to see if I had missed the same thing on it.  But sadly no, still no drop leaf support on the IF table.

With the iron and wood finished it was on to the head.  Normally this is the point where I talk about dremeling, polishing, rubbing compound and the like.  Not so much here.

For one thing, the head appears to have been under the lid for most of its life, so there isn't a whole lot of corrosion and bug poop to worry about.  For another what's left of the graphics looks very fragile.  As far as cleaning the head, it will be light wiping with Singer oil along with the 66-1.  I did give the ornaments on the top of the presser/needle/tension bars some buffing with #0000 steel wool, but that was the harshest I got with the head.

There might be some dremeling of some of the metal parts in the future, but not a lot.

As an aside.  I'm firmly in the "James Bolton had nothing to do with the 12" camp.  Maybe if he had filed for some patent on it.  The guy had over 20 patents to his name, none of them involving the 12, which had a lot of new fangled stuff on it that was patented.  The only documentation I've read about giving him any credit for the NF were his own journals written after Isaac Singer's death.  Not a very persuasive argument.  Alex Askaroff makes the case against Bolton HERE.  Alex's blog is one of my favorites (along with just about any other blog about old Singers).  I keep meaning to buy his Isaac Singer book, but the sewing machines get in the way.  One Singer book I have read and do recommend is "The First Conglomerate: 145 Years of the Singer Sewing Machine Company" by Don Bissell.  It's available at Amazon.

Back to the machine.  The bottom end is immaculate compared to what I usually get.  A little oil, maybe some steel wool buffing in the future and I'm going to call it good to go.

The arm side plate was on pretty good.  It might quite possibly had never been off before.  It took a bit of gentle coaxing to get it free.  I went very slowly, wanting to make certain the finish hadn't fused together over the years.  Once it was off I was once again happily surprised with the condition of the inner workings.

Inside the plate there was a bit of cool history as well.  The machine's factory id number was hand written inside.  Neat, huh?

The serial number is a moderately low in the 1879 commission sequence.  So I'm going ahead and saying it was built in 1879.  That covers me from the 1870s to the 1960s, with the exception of the 1940s.  Maybe another 15-91.  hmm.

Once the cleaning was finished, I belted her back up and gave the treadle a go.  Wow, the 8" flywheel is a very different animal from the 13" ones.  It's very light and doesn't carry much momentum.  With the larger wheels once I get them going I can let the wheel driven the stitching and just give little foot pushes to keep the speed up.  The 8" is all on the sewer.  And if you aren't smooth with your foot action you get instant feedback.  I can't wait to get the 12x1 needles and make some stitches with it.  However ugly the first batch are going to be.

Just another average Monday for me in my retirement.  How did your day go?