1963 Singer Touch & Sew

I love to sew. Whether it be quilting or crafting or making clothes, I love it. That is, until I sit down to begin a project. You see, my sewing machine is old, which isn’t necessarily the problem, but certainly makes for some frustrating situations.

When my partner’s grandmother passed away, we got her old sewing machine. It folds up into a table so you can leave it out in the open like it is any other side-table, or lift it out and start sewing. It has ample space on either side where the eaves unfold, perfect for keeping your scissors and extra thread, bobbins and pins handy. This lovely machine is a 1963 Singer Touch & Sew DELUXE ZIG-ZAG Sewing Machine Model 600. And with its sexy 60s styling and all metal frame and components, it’s a beast that won’t ever break… or so I thought.

I believe it was the first time that I was inspecting this sewing machine, I opened the faceplate to the pressure regulating dial which had the diagram for how to thread it.

CRACK!!!

TING!!!

A small, U-shaped piece of metal had landed next to the throat plate, and as I let go of the faceplate to pick up this object, my face was stricken with horror as I watch it tilt to the side. I looked at my fingers and cried, “What have you done you bony bastards?!” but there came no response. I’d already broken it and haven’t even started sewing yet! At least it was only the top hinge, and was still holding on by the bottom hinge. So I continue threading and get ready to sew and realize there’s something missing… the foot pedal! Thinking it must be stored inside the table somewhere, I reach under and my hand grasps a metal bar, which starts to slide down. And so I go ahead and pull it down all the way when suddenly the machine starts buzzing and I see the needle bouncing up and down! Oh! This must have a knee pedal. That should pose to be interesting.

And with that, I grab a scrap piece of fabric to test how well it sews, and it started out beautifully. So, reaching for my latest quilting project, I was excited to start machine sewing, especially after having to hand sew the last few I had done.

SEW SEW SEW CRUNCH!!!

My knee immediately jerks off the pedal. Wow, that sounds wrong. Oh well, it’s grammatically correct. I inspect the top and find nothing wrong, so I lift the presser foot and try to pull the quilt out of the way, only to discover that it won’t budge. So I open the slide plate to inspect the bobbin and discover that it is no longer in the hook raceway, but has been pulled, still inside the reel holder, to the underside of the throat plate, where I can see a whole mangled up, tangled up mess of white thread.

My head drops. I carefully snip the thread so as to not leave any small pieces inside the machine which could further screw it up, take out the bobbin and try to decipher what must have gone wrong. This is when I discovered something very interesting. Inside the reel holder where the bobbin goes, there is a very small, thin piece of metal, and it was broken in half.

And, being the cheapskate that I am, I decided I’d figure out how to use the machine even with this flaw, and found that if I merely nudge the two ends back together, the machine sewed again. And so for years, this is how I dealt with it, until my partner decided to take it into the shop to get it fixed because I could no longer rig it to work properly. They cleaned it out, oiled it up, and fixed the reel holder. Yay! I could finally start sewing again! And so I reattached it to the table, plugged it in, grabbed another quilting project, and slowly press my knee against the pedal bar.

SEW SEW SEW CRUNCH!!!

“Are you kidding me?!” I screamed, knowing full well what the problem was. And so the process of rigging it began again, which funnily, I only had to nudge it back in that one time and it worked for 2 years without much assistance. However, now I’m back to the point before taking it to the repair shop again, and wondering if this tiny little piece of thin metal is really worth the $50 it costs to replace it, which does not include labor. But alas, I love this machine, and I love to sew, and so whenever we have the money to fix it, I’ll take it down to the shop.