Yeah, I Knew It Was Going To Happen - Singer 500A

 It's one of those machines everyone gets eventually.  But I promise this one was an accident... Kinda.

You see it's one of those Shopgoodwill things.  I saw it sitting there, looking a little beat up.  It was one of three or four 500As up. The others were going for a hundred dollars or more. I saw this one and said to myself, "That's a fifty dollar machine, tops."

So I put $50 on it. I kind of figured it would go for around $75 to $80 since it's missing the power cord.  But nope, fortune favored me and I won it for $41.

Something about the Tennessee Goodwill stores.  They and Indiana have the more horrible packing.  This one showed up in a 3 CU box with a couple of pieces of brown paper wrapped around it and no other packing.  Luckily FedEx decided this was one of the few times that they didn't play toss across a few dozen times with one of my Goodwill packages.  Just a few additional scuffs, but not damage, shockingly.  On the bright side, it is the fastest I've ever received a Goodwill package.  Six days from the end of the auction until I had it dropped off.  Shoot it's usually over a week before they even get around to shipping it.  So I guess overall it's a win.

I bid on it knowing it was going to need some new paint.  I looked up one of those paint matching apps online.  They look pretty simple to use.  Just snap a picture in the Sherwin Williams app, go to the store and their machines read it and mix you a batch.  Of course it's by the gallon, so I'm guessing all the beige and cream  machines are looking at getting a new coat at this point.

Mechanically it seems pretty sound.  Everything turns.  I haven't ran the motor because it came without a power/pedal cord and it's that funky 4 prong job.  I was thinking about pulling it out and hard wiring in a pedal and power cord, but I checked and the one I ordered will be here on Saturday, so I guess I can wait.

Whoever had it before loved oiling it that's for sure.  Oiling and greasing.  Bunches!  In the picture above you can see how oil has pooled in the case.  It was dripping oil when I got it.  I guess they wanted to make sure it would turn when they donated it.

So yeah, it's a little bit of a mess.  But not really anything took difficult to deal with.  A little paint some paper towels to suck up the puddles of oil.  Scrape off the dried grease and it'll be in the rotation.  Maybe I'll take it to Philmont this year as my zigzagger... well take it and the 107W5 as my zigzaggers.  And yep, it's already coming apart for the cleaning to commence.

And if you are wondering what this machine is in the background.  It's a 206 that belongs to one of my charity sewing friends. I've worked on a 99, 128, 101 and 301 for her.  The 206 had lots of bad things going on.  The original Needle Vibrating Amplitude Lever had shattered, so I replaced it with one off of a 306 (hence the beige on black).  It still has some parts coming in to resolve a few more issues so it's hanging out here for a few more days.

Oh yeah, it's not the only new machine I need to post about.  I also picked up another Centennial 15-91 and another VS2 last week that I need to get posts up for as well.  So I'm officially at 50 machines.  Go Team!

Update 5 March:  I pulled the cam stack out this morning and just had to share this.  That had to be an amazing shot to get the button under the stack and between the two guides.  Bravo.