I'm not the biggest fan of 66s to begin with. And I find it really annoying when I come across ads with people throwing exclamation points about their old machine having the the scroll (that's the real name of the design) decals. What does score points for me though is that it has the back clamp presser bar. So YAY! Look at my super rare antique Red Eye that's probably worth about $1500, right. Sigh.
I skipped the Evaporust treatment this time. Soaking adds a day to a cleaning projects without that great of results. Instead I went straight to dremeling on the shiney metal parts. It was seriously encrusted. I wore out three wire brushes getting the gunk off.
For a comparison you can go back and look at the photos from when I first picked it up. While I wasn't as thorough as I was with the 201 or 27, I am pleased with how it came out.
One minor issue on reassembly. I don't have an adjuster's manual for a 66-1. The manuals I have are for 66-4 and later. Those machines all have nice little helpers built into them for setting the timing. The 66-1 doesn't. So the manuals were not that great of a help. I was pretty much guess-timating the timing settings. It took a while but I finally got decent stitches by threading it up and eyballing the hook catching the thread. Also, there are no depth gauges for the needle bar. Another bit of "hmmm, I guess that looks right" was used for it. The first go around I forgot to tighten the set screw on the thread take up crank so in use it slipped and the needle bar connecting stud started banging against the needle bar bushing. The needle itself tapped against the bottom of the hook.
Don't think I know the names of the parts off the top of my head. I keep parts list handy for each machine, so I don't have to ask for "a thingy that goes into the do-hicky".
In the original post about the 66-1 I mentioned how it looked like it had been sitting next to a coal stove for decades or something. It turned out to be worse than I first thought. Not only was black sludge covering most of the machine, but on the back were it caked on that stuff ate away whatever it was sitting on. The graphics and paint were moderately eaten away, but the bare metal of the side cover and its thumb screw were severely pitted.
After causing more damage to the 27-3's decals by being too rough with my cleaning, I'm going slow with this one. I might not really appreciate the scroll design, but I do like intact graphics. So it's just light wiping with Singer oil every day or two for the foreseeable future.
Another not-so-minor issue, that really shouldn't have been an issue at all was re-installing the regulator-thumb screw-feed forked connection assembly. I don't know why I keep doing it wrong and wind up fighting it for half an hour or so before remembering how to do it. Maybe writing it down will burn it into my brain.
If you have the feed regulating thumb screw (Singer part 253 - that part number is burned into my brain) then when re-installing you must first mate the feed regulator to the thumb screw before sliding the feed forked connection roller into the regulator. Trust me, doing it the right way takes seconds. Trying mate up the thumb screw once you have the roller in the regulator will just lead to the creation of new cuss words.
If you watch the Clydebank video there is a sequence of a guy putting this bit together. What's really annoying is that the guy is like not paying attention to what he's doing, he's chatting to the people around him while he just slaps that whole thing together. Me, I'm on my knees twisting my neck in angles it shouldn't go with all my fingers jammed into the pedestal trying to hold together little fiddly bits that want really badly to explore deeper into the deepest reaches of the internals.
I started breaking the 66-1 down because there was the possibility that it might go into the straight leg treadle. I went with the 15-30 instead. The stitches on the 66 just aren't as good as the 15's. The 201 and 301 make better stitches as well. The 66 doesn't make bad stitches, they are better than what I get out of the zig zag machines trying to do straight stitches, for certain.
Maybe when I get a top on one of the Davis irons I'll put the 66 in service. For now it's in the bentwood case base on display, the Red Eye! graphics beaconing their million dollar value for all to behold. Sigh.
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