Halloween Treats

It's Halloween today.  We don't do much for Halloween here, although we did have one group of trick or treaters, first time ever.  This is the inside of the biscuit tin today.  Gingerbread!

Pumpkins, stars and moons.

Fashion and Photography

Where do fashion and photography overlap?  When you get a necklace so beautiful you have to photograph it, of course!  I love this necklace, it is really delicate and in bright sunlight casts the most incredible shadow.  I've just got to find something to wear it with now......

Singer Fashion Mate 362

I got a new machine to work on on Wednesday.  To be frankly honest it's rather ugly but I was intrigued.  It was a Singer Fashion Mate 362 with a garish orange tinge rather reminiscent of faded curtains after a hot summer.  They look like and in design are similar to the Singer Hushmatic 242, equally unattractive I'm afraid!  The Fashion Mate 362 has completely plastic casing, not something I am overly fond of.  Let's get to the nitty-gritty and start to pull it apart.  First of all you need to get the top off, this is fairly simple, there are only two screws holding it on. The second is under the felt disc on the thread spool.

Arrows mark screw positions

 

Now take the belt cover of the side, it's only one screw and a bit of wiggling to get it free.  Next take the handwheel off.  It's the normal type, take the stop-screw out then unscrew, take washer off and slide handwheel off.  The belt will make it hard, just pull!  When you go to put it back on make sure you slip the belt back on the handwheel and then motor before attempting to get it back in position.  When you've taken the top of it'll look like this:

Under top cover

 

Notice the plastic gear nestled inbetween all the metal ones?  And the plastic cams?

 

Now take the back off.  You will need to take off the belt cover and handwheel as described previously.  To take the back off remove the screws marked in diagram.  Tip the machine up and remove the metal light bulb cover, it will only get in the way.  Make sure pressor foot is raised.

Remove screws indicated

 

Now comes the tricky bit.  The casing is plastic remember so you don't want to be careless.  Place your machine as illustrated above and GENTLY lever the left hand side from the base of the casing with a screwdriver.  At the same time (it may help to have two people) grab hold of the right side and pull it towards you.  You should now be able to gently push it to the left and it will come free.  Remember if it gets stuck DON'T FORCE IT, it WILL break.  Now your machine should look like this.

With the back off

 

Now clean and oil your machine.  This one was very dry and I had to give it a thorough oiling.  I also had to clean a lot of rust off the main shaft.  When it's all nice and clean and oiled put it back together again, being careful with that plastic.  Next I cleaned and oiled the base of the machine.  First of all I took it out of its plastic base, this is fairly simple, just remove the two grub screws holding the hinges to the machine.  Next I opened the bobbin plate and took the throat plate out allowing me to access the bobbin and hook area.  To get the bobbin case out lever the piece of metal on the right up and over the screw it is sitting over, as shown in the image below.

 

Now the bobbin case and hook can be cleaned properly.  This machines bobbin case was very rusted so I dealt with that before progressing.  Last of all I turned the machine upside down and cleaned and oiled the base.  These machines have a fabulous belt drive underneath and the belt on this one is in surprisingly good condition - it looks almost new.

Fabulous belt drive.

 

Now all I need to do to this machine is give it a very thorough cosmetic job.  I am guessing someone stored it in a shed or garage for a while because the hard cover and base are very dirty and the locks rusted stiff.  Nothing that a bit of TLC won't fix though!

Husqvarna 6230 gears

Husqvarna 6230's are one of the Husqvarna's with two gears.  This means that the motor can run constantly at the optimum speed but the machine will go slower.  This particular Husqvarna is not in particularly good condition however it should work currently.  After a clean and lubrication I discovered that two of the cams were hopelessly cracked.  Therefore this machines days are seriously numbered.  When the machine was plugged in and ran a horrible grating noise made itself apparent.  I managed to trace the noise to under the side cover.  To get the side cover off one has to pop the hand-wheel off and take two screws out, then the fascinating gear and pulley arrangement is seen.

Pulley and gear arrangement, the motor is on the right.

 

When I took this photo I had already taken the little plastic cap which is screwed in by two screws off.  Now that I could see a bit better what was going on I took the entire machine off its base.  This is probably not essential but makes visibility a lot easier.  I was now left with this:

 

The black belt connects the gears and pulley to the main drive of the machine.  When you have unscrewed the machine from the base tip it downwards slightly to facilitate getting that belt off.  I have also taken the toothed belt that runs from the motor to the pulley off.  Now take the white cover off and follow with the grub screws holding the pulley on.

 

Now by rotating the pulley until one of the holes is positioned directly over each of the screws on the right hand side in turn and removing them you can get the whole gear set up out.  You should now have this:

 

This can now be pulled apart even further:

 

I pulled mine apart and lubricated everything that could possibly move.  I then re-assembled it and put it back on the machine.  I'm not exactly sure what was wrong with it but it doesn't grate any more unless you apply a force when it is turning.  I suspect there is a small clearance somewhere but although I tried for quite a while to find it I was unsuccessful.  It's almost ready for sale now, at a reduced price because of the cracked cams.

I will hopefully be uploading a manual for one of these shortly.  Has anyone out there sewed with one of these in better condition?  What are they like?