Unbanished! Treadlizing The 328K

This started out because of a post in the Vintage Singers mailing list.  Someone mentioned getting a 328K to put in a treadle.

I realized that I haven't given the history on this machine (if it's the machine that's my family heirloom and not the wife's family heirloom).  The serial number was allocated on December 10, 1962.  Twenty days before I was born, cool.  Although given the high location in the sequence and the fact the next sequence wasn't allocated until February 14th, 1963, probably means this was made in early 1963.  Which follows with my sister's story.

According to her, our mom got this machine new while my sister was between 3rd and 6th grades.  She started 3rd grade in 1962.  She doesn't remember if it was a gift or our mom just bought it, but it was new she remembered.   I came into possession of it around 1991 when I was living in Virginia.  I had been sewing on the Sew Maid for about 8 years at that point.  My mom offered up the 328K that had been superseded by a newer machine that she and my sister had purchased matching copies of at a Belk's where my sister worked around 1976.  I had always thought that 'new' machine was a Montgomery Wards machine, I'll have to double check next time I'm in Oklahoma.  Using the 328K, as the years wore on it became increasingly loud, slow and finicky.  I made some half hearted attempts to tune it up but just never enough to get it running right. The mailing list post made me take another shot at it.  So here's the blow by blow of what it took.

The first step is to remove the 4 screws that hold on the motor/belt cover and the cheap plastic wiring cover. The motor cover holds the plastic piece in place so it has to come out first.  (Note:  I was part way through the procedure when I decided to  blog all the steps so my electrical is already detached).

You can skip disconnecting the wires of you want to keep the ability for powered sewing as well.

De-crimp or cut the wiring.  I decided to cut and leave a bit of the leads attached so I could identify when goes where when I wire the lamp back in.

The belt does need to come off. Leaving it on will add too much resistance for treadling effectively and it's kinda right where where the treadle belt goes.

Remove the stop motion screw, clamp and washer.  Pull the hand wheel out until the outer lip is flush with the edge of the shaft crank.  The belt is really snug so you won't be able to get the hand wheel all the way off with the belt still on. (This is the easiest way I have found to remove the belt.)

Use your thumb to press the belt away from the hand wheel while you slowly turn it counter clockwise.  The belt should roll off the hand wheel easily after a few inches.

Remove and store the belt.

If you are like me and your treadle is in another building, replace the cheap plastic electrical cover, motor cover, hand wheel and stop motion parts so you don't loose them.  If your treadle is right there, then just leave them off for now.

At the front base of the pedestal remove the screw holding in the treadle belt knockout and wiggle the knockout free.  Careful when pulling the knockout free, the metal around it has very sharp edges.

Now on to the treadle.  The one I am going to use is a Franken-treadle with a set of Davis irons and a Singer top.  A little bit of a pain.

Many of the Singer fold away cabinets from the black cast iron era have this nifty wood piece with a nice soft cover on the bottom to help hold your machine steady when stored.  The problem is that it sticks out far enough that the newer machines with their deep bases catch on it.  It's just two screws holding it on, so an easy fix.

Not the only issue though.  The newer machines have a very narrow lip before the base drops down.  The older Singer cabinets want more room under the machine.

I had ran into this issue before when trying to mount the 301 in a Number 40 Library Table.  On that occasion there was nothing I could do.  The table was in good enough condition that I didn't want to take a sander to it and wear off some of the lip.  Since this set up was made of spare parts I was ready to go ahead and do some hacking.  But I noticed that a good bit of the edge was already worn down, so before sanding I tried lifting the front of the bed as I lowered the machine.

It was just a tiny bit snug but it managed to snap into place.

If you were like me and had to put the machine together to move it, this is where you would take the hand wheel back off to put on the treadle belt.

Threading the belt up the front is pretty self evident.  Going down the back side the belt stays in the machine and drops through a smallish hole in the base.

Given the cobbled together nature of the treadle I also had to deal with some alignment issues for the belt.  Nothing major since the top isn't screwed down to the legs.  Just a bit of shifting.

Once aligned and a whole lot of oil applied to the irons, it was time to treadle.  First here's the somewhat finished product.  328K Treadle!

Anyone with an affinity for old supercomputers may recognize the control panel off my Cray EL-98 in the upper right corner of that picture.  The Cray and my Sun mainframes are in storage until we get everything finished.

Remaining issues are.  1.  The 328's timing is just way wrong (see stitches in next picture). I need to spend some quality time with it.  2.  The belt is really not a good fit.  The staple snags inside the machine every few rotations.  I need to look at maybe going with a spring belt or maybe, maybe... cheesy purple rope!

A video of the 328K somewhat in action will finish out this post once I get them edited.  So check back.

Edit:  Wow, the video is bad.  I won't subject anyone to how bad the 328 looks and sounds struggling to make stitches in the video.  I'm going to put on a 9 spoke wheel (see Leila's comment below) tomorrow and then do another post with, hopefully, good treadling action going on.