After I put it on the reserve roster I kept looking for parts to make it whole. This summer while back in Oklahoma I chatted with a friend who rebuilds old dragsters (ha, I have a cheap hobby) about fabricating a crank (if you didn't read the previous posts about the straight leg the gist is the crank is an inch shorter and a different shape) but it turned out the be an expensive proposition. He wasn't set up for fabricating old style chunks of metal.
Still I kept my eyes open. Right after the new year I saw a flywheel and crank available on Ebay. The seller (haida22) was very responsive to my questions. I fired off a couple late at night on a weekend and figured I would hear back sometime the following Monday. Wrong, she responded within minutes, even measured the shaft for me to verify it was the right length. I ordered them immediately.
They came to Connecticut from Canada so the shipping was a few extra days, but wow, the wrapping job was better than I've received fragile items. Props to Melody (haida22) for being an awesome seller.
After I got the treadle together I posted to TreadleOn for people to lobby for what machine they would prefer to see in it. I was thinking of either the 66-1 or the 15-30. There were a few responses but McKenna had the swaying argument. For stitch quality, the 15 will always be the best. So 15-30 it is.
The red and black stitches were from the 401, 301 and Wicked Queen. The white stitches you can barely see are from the 15-30. Suffice to say they are perfect as expected.
The treadle is about 90 percent complete. I'm missing the front and rear belt guides and dress guard. I had spares from working on other older style irons, but they don't match up. The wood of the cabinet is going to need some attention in the near future as well. Also I don't have the foot pedal with the SINGER logo on it. The old style foot pedals work if you offset them way to the right and torque the pitman about 3/8 of an inch. That will be changed out as soon as I can find the right pedal that isn't priced into the stratosphere.
The cheesy purple rope doesn't appear to work as well on the straight leg. I noticed when I received the flywheel that the belt groove was markedly smoother than the older style flywheels. Sure enough the difference results in more slippage. I broke down and orders a half dozen leather belts from shop.sew-classic.com. They are less expensive than what I've seen belts go for on Amazon. I've never had a negative experience with Sew Classic.
I'm going to leave the rope on Black Swan though. She's modern enough that the purple looks appropriate with her.
I'll enjoy sewing on the straight leg for a while, then will break the whole thing down so I can strip and repaint it.
While prepping for the possibility that I might put a 66 in the treadle I parted out and started cleaning the 66-1, which had been stored next to a oil heater exhaust or coal stove for years. It is actually worse than I originally posted. Some of the metal is severely pitted from whatever corrosive is in oil/coal smoke. I spent nearly eight hours today going after most of the metal with a dremel, with a few pieces still remaining to finish up tomorrow. There will be a whole post on that experience soon.
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