Ketchup Anyone?

This post is all about cleaning up the nasty looking badge I removed from Ms. Rusty.  Initially I cleaned it up using the usual kerosene but it didn’t do much to improve the appearance.  I then  purchased some metal polish, specifically Eagle One Nevr-Dull because it is supposed to work well on all metals.  One a side note – I wonder why all these automotive type agents have hyphens in their brand names? (Evapo-Rust, Break-Away, Nevr-Dull, WD-40, etc.)  Is it a requirement that I don’t know about?

Using the Nevr-dull improved things a little bit, but the badge still didn’t look very good and this new product was taking more elbow grease than I’d like.  So I searched online for ways to clean tarnished brass.  Several different recipes of salt/vinegar combinations came up in my Google search, but my favorite “remedy” was to use ketchup!

So, I took the badge and soaked it in a dish of ketchup overnight.

mmm – tasty

After rinsing the badge it actually looks pretty good!

Front  Back 

It was after the ketchup treatment that the Nevr-Dull really showed it’s stuff.  I spent about 10-15 minutes polishing the badge and it looks much better.

Front  Back 

Now the badge isn’t perfect, so it will need a bit of tinkering to get it bent back into the correct shape around the edges.  I also need to spend some extra time to get the tarnish out of the crevices on the back.  Hopefully I can figure out how to do that, and get it done, by the time Ms. Rusty is ready for her “new” badge.

Thank you, Rain!!

No, I’m not talking about the liquid stuff that falls from the sky periodically.  I’m referring to Nicholas Rain Noe at The Vintage Singer Sewing Machine Blog.  He made me feel like a superstar (which I am not, just in case you were wondering – Ha! Ha!) Not only does he follow my blog, but he also interviewed me and then apparently found it interesting enough for him to post the interview on his amazing blog today! 

Part of my shock stems from the fact that, unlike me, Rain actually knows what he is doing when he fixes up vintage Singer sewing machines.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve learned from him between his blog and his contributions to the Yahoo! groups on sewing machines.  In some ways it’s like Kobe Bryant interviewing an basketball fan!

So, I recommend you do one of the following:

1. If you want to learn how to work on a vintage Singer from someone with experience and knowledge, then you need to check out and follow his blog.  He also has a great tutorial on how to identify the model of a vintage Singer from less than ideal (i.e. crappy) Craigslist photos.
2. If you want to find more about me, a complete amateur with no experience and likely has a screw loose, then you should check out what he posted today on his blog http://vssmb.blogspot.com/2011/08/restoring-201-2-interview-with-elle.html.
3. If you don’t care about vintage sewing machines – What’s wrong with you!  Check out Rain’s blog so you can get hooked!

Naked Ms. Rusty

Well, I guess “naked” depends on your definition.  Is paint skin or clothing?  In any case, here are photos of my girl with just her paint and decals:

     

Here is a close-up of some of the rust lurking under her paint:  Yuck!!

To get rid of that nastiness, Ms. Rusty will be getting her own personal spa in Evapo-Rust.  The first problem is finding a container large enough to soak her in.  I had an old industrial sized mop bucket that fit the bill and Ms. Rust could lay on her side in the bottom of it. 

The second problem was finding enough Evapo-Rust to cover her.  I used 2 gallons, but it still wasn’t enough, so I filled one of the empty gallon bottles with water and put that in the the “bath” as displacement.  That worked well, but she still wasn’t quite covered, so I added some sand for further displacement.  Finally she was covered and could enjoy her bath.

Ms. Rusty Soaking:

I let her soak over night, or about 30 hours, and then took her out and hosed her down to rinse off all the Evapo-rust.  Here are some photos after her bath. 

   

You’ll notice that the clear-coat finish has quite a bit of hazing/damage after her bath.  I suspect that is because Evapo-Rust is water based and got underneath the clear-coat in the rusty areas.  I don’t much care in this case since I’m blasting it all off anyway.

The next time you see Ms. Rusty will be after her “facial” (aka – sand blasting).

Other parts

This post covers all the other miscellaneous parts that I removed from Ms. Rusty prior to her Evapo-Rust treatment.

One of the parts I tried taking out was the arm shaft busing.  To do this it  is necessary to loosen or remove the set screw holding it in place.  The photo below shows the location of this screw.

Once this set screw is out you have to use a brass rod or wooden dowel to tap on the back of the bushing.  The Adjusters Manual states it’s important that you don’t want to concentrate all the force on just one area of the bushing.  After quite a while of trying to tap this busing out, and using copious amounts of Bread-Away, the bushing just wouldn’t come out.  So, rather than press my luck I decided to leave this bearing in place.

The next part on my list was the upper bushing for upright gear shaft (see photo below).

Like any of the other bushings on Ms. Rusty, it is held in place with a set screw.  This one can be viewed, and removed through the hole under the balance wheel.

Then it’s a simple matter of using a dowel through the top of the machine to tap the bushing out.

Mid removal:     After removal:  

The next two photos show the view from under machine after the bushing is removed.

These photos also show the lower bushing for upright gear shaft, but I didn’t have any luck trying to remove it from Ms. Rusty.  Another thing I tried doing was to separate the Ms. Rusty’s arm from her bed by removing the three large screws under the machine (see photo above).  Unfortunately, these seemed to be welded in place and I also had no luck removing this buggers.

The last piece that I removed from Ms. Rusty was the needle bar post.  The first step was to remove the set screw holding it in place.

This part required several applications of Break-Away, and tapping it out with a hammer and a wooden dowel, but I was eventually successful in getting it out.  I really wanted this part out since it had a lot of surface rust on it.  Here is a photo of the part after it was cleaned with kerosene and Evapo-rust and had a little sanding with fine grit sand paper to smooth the surface.

Next time – Ms. Rusty goes for a bath!

Badge Removal

Now I can’t strip and paint Ms. Rusty with her badge still on, so it will have to come off.  Also, the poor badge is not in great shape so it will need some TLC also. 

See all that lovely corrosion? 

The badge is attached to the arm by two pins 

Before you can take off the badge, the pins need to be removed.  One way is to drill them out, but a less invasive way is to straighten the pins and pull them out.  I’m wasn’t sure the second option was viable due to the corrosion, but I gave it a try anyway.

Horizontal Arm Shaft (HAS) Removal–Part 2

Last time we covered loosening and/or removal nearly all the parts necessary to remove the Horizontal Arm Shaft (or HAS for short).  Today, we’ll actually take that bugger out!

The last thing that needs to be removed is the screw in the stop motion flanged bushing (the metal part that pokes out that holds the motor and balance wheel).

Now it is necessary to use a rod of some sort to tap out the HAS.  The Adjusters Manual recommends a “brass rod of the proper diameter”.  I used a 7/16” wooden dowel.  The key is, you don’t want to use something really hard that can damage the HAS – you want the bar your tapping with to be softer than the steel of the HAS. 

Place the rod or dowel against the shaft end by the clamp stop motion bushing and HAS bearing.  In this next photo I am pointing to the HAS and the spot where I placed the dowel.

I used a hammer to gently tap the dowel which helped push the HAS slowly out through the front of the machine.  As the end moved past the HAS bearing, the bearing was easily removed from the machine.

Horizontal Arm Shaft (HAS) Removal–Part 1

The title of this entry is a tad misleading because several other parts need to be removed in this process just allow removal of the Horizontal Arm Shaft (or HAS for short).  These include: HAS bushing, HAS bevel gear, counter balanced feed cam, and feed lifting eccentric.  Basically, we are now removing most of the remaining guts from Ms. Rusty.

According to the Adjusters Manual, the following parts need to be removed just to begin this project.  Fortunately this has already been done in previous posts, but here is the list just in case you are starting from scratch:

• Remove face plate, arm side cover, and stitch indicator plate
• Removed needle bar & presser bar
• Remove the balance wheel and motor
• Remove singer light leads
• Remove feed connecting rod
• Remove feed forked connection & feed regulator

Now that we are ready to go, the first step in removing the HAS is to loosen or remove the 2 set screws on the bevel gear.  To do this, turn the shaft so the set screws can be accessed through the hole next to the arm side cover.

Hole in Arm Shaft: 

May need a flashlight to see the screw: 

Screwdriver through hole to removed screw from gear: 

Next, loosen or remove the set screw on the feed cam and feed lifting eccentric.

Most set screws look alike and are interchangeable.  However, the feed cam set screw is longer and has a more conical tip than the other 2 set screws that were removed from the gear.

It is important to make sure both the gear and the feed cam is free from the HAS.  In Ms. Rusty’s case, it took an application (or 2 or 3) of some break-away to get these free.  I also used a bit of force by holding onto the gear and then rotated the HAS using the to ensure it was loose.  This was repeated for the feed cam.  Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this since I didn’t have a spare hand to take the picture and my hubby wasn’t around to help.

The next step is to turn the shaft so the set screw in the needle bar crank can be access through the hole in the back side of the arm.

Hole Screw

Loosen or remove the screw.  This is what it looks like: 

According to the Adjusters Manual, you should now be able to easily remove the needle bar connecting link (complete with stud) and thread take-up crank.  HA!  I assumed this part couldn’t be removed due to excess gunk and goo so I applied Break-Away liberally to every joint.  While that did its job, I decided to move to next step.

Loosen or remove the set screw visible through the hole above last screw removal (see photo below).  This releases the thread take-up lever link hinge stud (i.e., it retains the take-up lever assembly).

If the hinge stud is difficult to take out (in my case YES) it can be pushed out through the small hole in the right hand side of the machine arm.

Hole in right hand side of machine arm: 

Using metal bar to push out the hinge stud: 

Now that the hinge stud was removed, I went back to trying to remove the needle bar connecting link, but it still wouldn’t budge.  After close inspection, I discovered that there was yet another screw hidden by rust!  The photo below shows me removing that screw through an access hole.

At this point, it was easy to remove the  Thread Take-up Lever Assembly, and the Needle bar link, complete with stud (which subsequently fell out)  Here is a photo with each of the parts labeled.

This is a good place to stop and have an adult beverage (or a cookie – your choice), so my next post will cover the actual removal of the HAS.

AWOL

You may be wondering where I’ve been, especially since I’ve said that Ms. Rusty is disassembled now.  Well, my kitchen is being remodeled so I’ve been a bit distracted the past two weeks with ordering cabinets, getting floor tile delivered and having the kitchen re-wired. 

I’m going to try my best to get a new Ms. Rusty post out tomorrow, so please hang in there!!

Upright Arm Shaft Removal

Today’s post will cover the removal of the Upright Arm Shaft, or UAS as I am quite fond of acronyms.  The UAS has one gear at each end – the shaft lower bevel gear that helps drive the rotary hook gear, and the upper gear that connects with the gear on the horizontal arm shaft in the upper part of the arm.

Before taking off the UAS, there are several other parts that should be removed first, including: 

• Rotating hook driving shaft bevel gear back cover
• Arm Side Cover
• Stitch indicator plate
• Balance wheel

Since these parts were removed from Ms. Rusty in previous posts (along with many others), I’m ready to go!  Loosen or remove 2 set screws in lower bevel gear.  I’m pointing to one of these screws in the photo below.

Next, loosen or remove 2 set screws in Upright Arm Shaft (UAS) upper bevel gear.  The easiest way to access these screws is through the hole that the stitch length indicator plate normally covers.  I try to show the location of the gear and screws in the next two photos.

Removing the Connecting Rods–Part 2

Last time we took out the Feed Connecting Rod.  This time we’ll tackle the Feed Forked Connection rod and Feed Regulator.  Before removing this part several other pieces need to be removed first, including:  balance wheel, motor, arm side cover, stitch indicator, and “feed forked connection eccentric hinge screw”.  All of these have already been removed from Ms. Rusty so we’re ready to go!

Remove feed regulator hinge screw and friction washer, which is located on the right hand side of the machine, below the balance wheel post.

Location:     After removal:

Removing this screw detaches the feed regulator, and in my case, both the feed regulator and feed forked connector rod fell off the drive shaft for easy removal from under the machine.

Here are few photos of the left and right hand side of the feed regulator and feed forked connection rod (FR&FRC for short)

Close-up of Left Hand Side

Feed regulator removed from FRC:

His is what Ms. Rusty looks like without her connecting rods:

View from bottom of arm:

View from front through stitch regulator plate hole: 

Since these parts didn’t have any visible rust, I cleaned them using only kerosene

All Connecting rod parts before cleaning: 

After cleaning: 

Now these parts are ready for re-install after Ms. Rusty has her facelift