Accessories for the Singer 27 (ca.1910)

All of these images are from the Smithsonian's Historical Trade Literature in Smithsonian Collections.

Singer 27-4

The title page of the manual that was one of the cabinet drawers.  It was apparently completely soaked with oil at some point in the past, as it has all darkened to this oak-brown and now feels exactly like wax paper!

Cleaning and oiling a vintage Singer

 

 

I'm sure that sometimes you can have too much advice, but clearly I haven't reached that point yet.  Here is a two-part series from Lizzie Lenard on how to do the regular maintenance on an antique sewing machine, a Singer 28K.

The advice to use wooden toothpicks for getting lint etc. out of tight spots is very helpful!

Cleaning the cast-iron treadle

 

The "minimalist approach" from Toby's Sewing Machine repair -- yes, using sewing-machine oil!

Drawers

Today I re-conditioned the drawers, using Howard's Restor-a-Finish (in Dark Oak) and Feed-N-Wax.  In the photo above, the drawer on the bottom is cleaned but untreated, the middle one has the Restor-a-Finish, and the top one has both.

You can really see here how the slats of the open-case sides kept the finish underneath from dulling like the exposed parts did!

I will repeat the Feed-n-Wax finish in a few weeks, as the label recommends -- not sure yet if I will leave the pebblier areas of the finish as they are, as well-earned patina, or try and smooth them out a little with some steel wool.

And just because the trim is so pretty! --

Re-conditioning woodwork

Two videos from the Vintage Sewing Machine Garage on re-conditioning woodwork -- cases for portable machines here, but the idea is the same. 

TreadleOn's page about re-conditioning and refinishing is here.

"Make Your Singer Sing"

Here are a pair of posts by Susie of Susies-Scraps about cleaning her 1920s Singer 66K with the gorgeous lotus decals.  Unlike more-detailed tutorials like the Vintage Sewing Machine Garage's videos, and others, this is only a brief outline of what she did, but as a side note her quilts are also interesting, most of them in the antique style!

• Make Your Singer Sing (Part 1) 
• Make Your Singer Sing (Part 2)
  

She also has a post about how to treadle.