Singer 15-91 Centenial (1951)

Picked this up for a friend who wanted a nice clean machine.

The emblem polished up nicely

Pulled all the chrome bits soaked them and reassembled it.

Going to make a base for it next

The real thing with these pre "styling" or maybe pre aluminum singers is the sound; it is just beautiful.

FYI
For making the base nothing beats this cheapo pair of over sized calipers

With the long jaws on the calipers you can check how far under the casting your base is going to fit with ease
I make a quick check and sketch for each machine because they are all slightly different underneath

Vigorelli Robot (1950's)

Been looking for one of these for years, found this one on CL.

I am deeply committed to my Necchi Nora but as usual I always thinking there is something better out there

So since nothing else comes close I thought that maybe Mr. Arnaldo Vigorelli would have a chance since he studied under Mr. Necchi!

Very impressed with the test pieces so far. The clean up took 4 hours, she is virtually chip and nick free, the worst area is around the throat plate. Quiet and smooth, it has the minimum requirements F,R,ZZ,L,R,C plus a cam stack.

This is the only domestic I have run into that regularly gets tangled if you don't hold down the top thread as with industrial machines. 

It has the motor decals that include Mistress Vigorelli; I have seen these images before but never really looked at what she is doing...

Not only is she Puttin' her red dress on, she is Sewing her red dress on! Should be a pretty tight fit.

It is very difficult to sexualize a sewing machine so leave it to the Italians to come up with something like this.

Made a base for her

Use a 1 x 3 Poplar, this is the 1st time I made a fold up and so you need to double the rear panel so that you can use the cabinet pivots.

I picked up a parts machine too if anyone needs anything!

White 2837

Cool retro sort of Deco design, unfortunately is a cosmetic disaster with lots of nicks and scratches.

But it is a lovable little shape, it was completely frozen, and took some time and effort to free up.

It is surprisingly smooth and amazingly quiet, some machines just have a free wheeling thing about them; this  one certainly does.

It is a left justified needle position, I don't like them that way and so, does not have the L-R-C control.

Typical of some of the White's it has a wide ZZ and we have been making boots recently, this came in handy.

Dressmaker S - 2402 (1980's?)

Dressmaker 2402 with manual, 30 cams, manual, other accessories.

I don't know if it could be called aesthetically beautiful but I am impressed with the sewing.
Good star-up torque, nice stitches, I like how quiet the machine is. Another good leather working machine.

When I got into the shop it could not be turned by the hand wheel except with great effort. I wasn't sure what I was getting into so I did a Tri-Flo soaking and worked the harder parts of the rotation with a pair of vice grips in place of the hand-wheel.

Eventually I could get the motor to drive the system and finally put a clamp on the foot pedal and got it running; it is a very smooth running machine.

I thought the ZZ was way too limited or narrow and so went in and increased the overall width by a lot.
The ZZ mechanism is the same as millions of machines and it was clear that the dial just didn't take the mechanism to its full extent, so I filed a little off the dial stop plate and now it is respectable.

So now the dial goes past 5... to 11

The face plate plastic was sun drenched and turned a horrible shade of green. I removed it, and with steel wool roughed it up and sprayed it baby blue. the printed part of the cover fell right off because the glue was all dried up.

NifetyThriftyGirl Vid