It’s been a little more than 24 hours, so I guess it’s safe to talk about it now… I was editing my weekly video for my YouTube channel, it was episode 31 of Sunday Morning Quickies. I had been editing it for a little over 2 hours when my computer decided that I needed another heart attack. The screen was black. Not even a BSOD, it… went… black… I miss the days of reset buttons on computers. I also miss the days when a laptop battery could be removed from a hung computer to force it to power off. Hell, I miss built in optical drives and PCMCIA slots (am I showing my age?). Anyway,I was looking ..read more

As a service to the members of the Vintage Sewing Machine Community, I am now maintaining a new page on my website “My Recommended Tools, Materials, and Suppliers“. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons, one of which may be considered kind of selfish. First (the selfish one) I hope to minimize the amount of email I get with the subject line of “What kind of…” or “Where do you get…”, and second, to help newcomers get a firm grasp on what tools, equipment, and supplies we use (though not all will require everything). Anyway… Take a peek at the lists when you get a chance. I’ll be updating them ..read more

The following images are companion pieces to my YouTube video “A Wiring Video for Debbie” posted on February 19th, 2022 ..read more

As I mentioned back in the middle of October, I had a second bout with Covid-19. As soon as I tested positive, my Primary Care Physician sent me to the Emergency Room of Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey for a monoclonal antibodies infusion. 17 hours later, the fever broke and I felt GREAT! Feeling “great” lasted for all of 2 days. I woke up that morning and my right arm was numb, VERY numb. I thought I must have slept in a weird position and maybe pinched a nerve. 2 more days passed and my arm wasn’t getting any better, in fact, it was getting decidedly worse! I had almost no ..read more

The picture shows the a before and after of the hook race / bobbin case and feed dogs of a Singer 15-30 from 1913. The machine belongs to a customer, now turned friend, who is just getting started in vintage sewing machines. I know technicians who, if they were presented this machine, would have said “Sorry, I don’t have the time to do THAT”… Well… How much time HAS this machine taken? The rest of the machine was just as bad, if not worse. There was crud about 1/16″ thick on the rock shafts below the machine. The connecting rod and stitch length regulator fork were barely recognizable for the ..read more

Having Covid-19 sucks. Having Covid-19 a second time, even after being fully vaccinated, sucks even more. My favorite songwriters, Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn wrote a song for Frank Sinatra- The Second Time Around, the sentiments of which are decidedly not, my friends the case with Covid-19. On a brighter note, my primary care physician was able to get me in to the local hospital when I received the monoclonal antibody infusion. I don’t know if it did any good or not as my symptoms were even more severe after I had the treatment, but 16 hours later, the fever finally broke. BTW – The first ..read more

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Sandy contacted me saying she tried rewiring the motor and lamp of her Singer 15-91, but was running into trouble with the motor. I told her to just send it on over to me and I’d have a look at it and see what the trouble was. Sandy’s initial complaint was that the motor, even after rewiring, was moving real slow, and needed a push to get it going. I suspected either a bad field coil or a bad armature – both of which were the case. The field coil was way out of whack, so I suspected an internal short on one side, and the armature had an open winding, both had t ..read more

I was working on a 31-15 made in 1910 for my friend Brandi. This machine was absolutely filthy. I had gone with her to pick this machine up about 10 months or so ago, and when we arrived, it was sitting outside, under a tarp, in its table, and with clutch motor. Brandi paid for it, we loaded it up in my truck, and headed back on down the road. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I picked the machine up from Brandi’s house, still in as found condition. My intention was to use it as the subject for a couple of videos, and in the process, get it back in perfect sewing condition. I did a substanti ..read more

It’s a cliche, I get it, but it’s also true; we live in an increasingly smaller world. I had a phone call today from a woman named Brenda who said she was given my business card by an employee at the local JOANN Fabrics and Crafts store. She said she was a beginner and was having pretty bad tension issues and couldn’t seem to get anything to work correctly. I asked what machine she had and what class bobbin it uses. Brenda told me that it’s a Singer Simple, and uses Class 15 bobbins. She also said she’s had it for about 6 months. Now I’m not a snob or anything, but I just don’t work on those c ..read more

That’s what Camille, a repair customer of mine, said to me today when I asked her how she liked her “new to her” Singer 99 that I set her up with a couple of months ago. Camille first contacted me to repair a family heirloom, a 1970’s Kenmore zigzag machine that had been languishing in a corner of her sewing room. It’s probably a stretch to call it a true heirloom, but I’ll use that term in its truest sense as it had been handed down by a family member and she really wanted to keep it running. The repairs were really quite simple, clean out an inordinate amount of packed in fluff, clean the th ..read more