Sewing Machines

My Sweetie learned from her Mother at an early age how to sew on a sewing machine.  She even inherited her Mother's sewing machine but never could get it to work.  So we bought a new one, a Singer Inspiration.  It's portable and has pretty much all the features necessary for most day-to-day sewing.

But after a while, she couldn't get it to work either.  Something to do with the bobbin.  So it sat unused for a long time.

Then, her hairdresser asked if she wanted to buy an older Singer Touch & Sew machine that even had the original sewing table.  $50.  And it worked.  So we suddenly had two sewing machines.  But then a problem developed in the older machine.  It was obviously some stripped gears. %&$#

Sweetie took the machine apart herself and figured out which gears were stripped and ordered them. But when it got time to put it all back together, she asked for help.  I jumped at the chance to fix something I've never worked on before.

I figured that since I'm mechanically inclined, have probably all the tools necessary to fix most mechanical things, I'm personally challenged by things that don't work, and I'm bored to tears, I should be able to figure it out with the help of YouTube videos and downloaded manuals.

Well, after about 40 hours of trying, I finally threw in the towel.  I fixed about 98% of it, but 2% was still not working right.  So it was finally decided that we should take it to a sewing machine repair person.

We took both of them thinking they are worthless if they don't work but valuable tools if they do work.

Surprisingly, the guy called later in the day saying they were both ready.  We went back and got them, paying something over $200 for getting them restored to excellent working condition, cleaned and oiled, along with a couple of replacement parts and answers to a lot of questions.  We think it was a good investment, so much so that I'm thinking I might learn how to sew.

I seriously doubt that I will attempt to repair any more sewing machines, but I've gained a whole new respect for those who can do it well.