Treadle From Random Pieces For The 107W5

 I don't think I've ever shown putting together one of the random parts from Norm treadles I do.  So let me show you how it goes.

First thing to note is that the irons I get are usually not complete.  They are almost always missing things like the wheels, belt guides and the bolts to hold it all together.

And the parts tend to be mismatched at times.  Singer's treadles went through several different designs.  One of those was the change from the flywheel being pinned onto the crank to being held on with a set screw.  In this case I had a pinned style flywheel, which it appears took a tiny narrower shaft, and the set screw crank.

The difference in diameters was tiny.  The crank's shaft was right at .5" where the flywheel's opening tapered from .505" when the crank enters to .497", just small enough to not fit.  That was resolved with a Dremel and a grinding bit, since I don't have a .5" bit for the drill press handy or anything cool like a milling machine. It took about five minutes of grinding (careful to keep the sleeve round) to get a nice fit.

Next I had to modify the crank.

This is fairly straight forward.  A drill press with a bit that is about the same diameter as the pin holes in the flywheel itself, I don't match the diameter of the crank set screw hole, it's much wider and whatever I use to pin won't fit in the flywheel pin holes and a narrower pin in a large hole will cause the flywheel to flop around on the crank.  The bit above is not the bit I used.  Way too big, and it's a wood bit that would just spin on the metal.  I used a DeWalt metal drilling bit.

With the hole drilled all the way through the crank I just needed to pin it.  I decided to use a screw that was just the right size to catch the metal, but not so thick that I needed to cut threads.  Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the fact that it was an aluminum screw, so the head snapped off while I was tightening it.  Oops.  But it's not like I'm ever going to take it apart, so I'll just pretend I planned it that way.

Now on to the irons.  Again these came with no bolts so I have stockpiled quite a few 3/8" bolts and nuts from my locally owned hardware store (I avoid Lowes and Home Depot as much as I can).  

This is another spot where the design changed over the years.  Sometimes you will get a center brace that is not threaded, sometimes a center brace that is.

For a threaded center brace the bolt needed is a 3/8", 18 threads per inch, 1-1/2" long bolt.  Or, what I do is just go with a 5/16" diameter bolt with nut an not worry about having to match Singer's threads.  

In this case I used a non-threaded brace and a mix of 3/8" 1-3/4" and 2-1/4" bolts.  A 2" bolt would be perfect, but I had used all those up on previous iron sets.

To assemble I found it is easiest to lay the center brace on the workbench just at the edge and slot the bolts for the first leg so it hangs.  The center brace weighs enough that the legs won't pull it off.

Then I stand the whole thing up on the table and attach the other side.

Next up are the Screw Centers for the pedal.  Luckily I still have a few Singer originals in my stockpile, but I am running low.  They are 3/8" with 16 threads per inch.  I'm not sure about the pitch angle of the centering cone, I think it's around 60 degrees.  Maybe when I run out it will be the excuse to finally get a lathe so I can turn them myself.

I tighten both sides until I have the pedal held, centered in the brace and snug enough that it doesn't move.  I tight both the retaining nuts.  I pick a side and back the screw out about 1/8 a turn so the pedal can flow free, but not so loose that it can rattle side to side.  Then I tighten the retaining nut.

Over the years I have come across retaining nuts that fit either a 5/8" or 3/4" wrench.  I think the 3/4" nuts are the older ones, but it really doesn't matter, both types have 16 threads per inch and are interchangeable on the screw centers.

Next up is the flywheel.  It gets the same treatment.  Tightened until snug, then back the screw back around 1/8 of a turn so that it falls easily and rocks back and forth if I put the heavy side of the crank (the pitman bearing) at the top.

Last up for the irons is attaching the pitman to the foot pedal.  It's a different type of bearing joint but the tightening idea works the same as the screw centers.  First thing to do is separate the two halves of the cup.  This area is usually quite a mess, the cup holds everything that has fallen into it over the centuries, so I give it a good cleaning.

Getting the cup and ball tightened properly takes more of a 'feel for it' than the screw centers, since there's not "give it a spin" to check instantly.  But I do pretty much the same thing.  I slow the top cup and ball through  the pedal, tighten the bottom cup until it holds tight, then back it off a fraction of a turn, finally tightening the retaining nut.  I've found these nuts have always used a 3/4" wrench.

I want the motion to be free, but I don't want there to be a "clunk" from the ball having space to slide up and down between the two halves of the cup.

Stand the whole thing up and the last step is to lubricate the pivot points.  

I just give 2-3 drops at each point.  There's no need to get them saturated, the excess will either just be spun off or will pool somewhere to make a mess.

After working the oil in I give a spin test.  With a moderately easy push on the front of the pedal I get around 20 revolutions of the flywheel then it settles to the heavy side down.  Giving a good firm push I get around 70 revolutions.

Next up was to get a wood top on the irons.  Thankfully I didn't have to cut up one of my good-ish tops.  Norm had given me a plywood top someone had fabricated for a domestic Singer.  It was a little too short for the 107w5, but that was quickly fixed with a pass or two of the jigsaw.

And a router to get the recess for the bed to lay flat.

I thought I would be cool and freehand the router cut.  Let that be a lesson.  Always use a guide when trying to cut a straight line with a router.

I also had to redo the hinge cutouts for the 107W5s beefier industrial hinges.  I started trying to do them with a chisel, but the plywood came apart very messily.  So I went back and used the router again.

I didn't photgraph the routing, suffice to say my measurements were't that great and there will be some wood filling in the near future.  But I got the top finished and was ready to mount the 105W7 and do some treadling.  Well, almost.

That's some genius level treadle assembly right there.

Also look at kinks in that belt.  Yep, the lack of belt guides doesn't have me worried one bit.

But hey, once I got it together it looked good.

Granted the work area is a little thin.  I'll fix that by putting on a drop leaf.  I'm actually kind of liking the skinny profile.  If anything I think this top has given me ideas for making my own narrow profile tops so I can increase my treadle count.  

Of course all the coolness in the world doesn't matter for squat if the thing can't sew.  And those lack of belt guides really come into play at this point.  That wobbly belt just wants nothing more than to launch itself off the wheels.  Especially when it bounces against the cutouts in the wood.  I alleviated a bit of that by widening the gap for the belt with the jigsaw.  I probably would have been better served if I would have just used some of the 50 feet of brand spanking new and perfectly straight 5/16" leather belt I bought specifically for the industrials.  Nah, let's do it the hard way.

First thing to note is that the stitch length indicator on the regulator is off by a little more than 11%. That's probably an adjustment I need to make, but I haven't figured out where.  Setting it at 8 spi gave me 9 spi.

But that's a small annoyance to deal with to have the funky regulator.  And I know where 9 spi is.  Since 9 is the ordained perfect stitch length for tailoring I'm good.

Next issue for me is the presser bar hand lift lever (since I don't have the knee lift set up).  The reciprocating feed on the W5 is a pretty substantial piece of engineering that takes up a lot of space and I rammed my fingers into it a few times going to lift the presser foot.  Still the feed is cool so I'll deal with it.

I also ended up skipping almost all of the pre and post tensioners.  I'm thinking that has more to do with using modern thread and sewing the crappy JoAnn's quality-level fabric I used for testing.

Then we come to the stitches themselves.  I'm happy.

The straight stitches are near perfection.  Best I've seen from any zig-zagger.  The zig-zags also are excellent.  Only a couple of very minor pull throughs on the bobbin side.  No domestic has ever been close to this good.  The tension difference was very easy to figure out.  One and a half turns tighter on the upper tension to go from straight to zigzag.

So this is it.  My official zig-zagging machine.  I just need to fabricate a drop leaf so I have a decent amount of work space and sometime in the future redo the entire top to get the machine centered better front to back.