Dual Needle Industrial Machine

A few years ago, I was making lanyards to sell at craft shows that required a double stitch and I picked up this 1951 Singer 112W140 to cut my sewing time in half.  As it turned out, the double needles were not spaced correctly for my project, so I picked up an eBay lot of gauge sets (presser foot, throat plate, needle clamp, and feed dog) to fit onto my machine.  About that time, demand for my lanyards dried up and I no longer had a reason to change the spacing of the needles on my machine and never installed another gauge set.

Here’s my problem:  When my auction lot arrived, they were all just thrown in a box.  Most of the gauge sets and individual pieces are unidentifiable.  As far as I can tell, they are all for Singers and I think I have 20+ full or partial sets.  The two in the bottom right corner of the photo are still wrapped in oil paper and apparently have never been used, many of the others also appear unused and none look like they would not be usable.

Some of the pieces bear Simanco part numbers but many do not have any part number.  Some, but not all are tied together as sets, some are in boxes with Singer model numbers (212W140 & 112W115) written on the boxes but I do not trust those markings.  The rest are just individual pieces.  I spent hours today on the internet trying to find a way to identify all the sets and pieces and match them to the model of Singer they go to so I could list them in my Etsy shop or on eBay but had no luck.  If anyone could provide, or point me to a source for identifying these parts, I would appreciate it.  If anyone wants any of them, I will make you a GREAT deal.

Singer 29-4

We had a community yard sale last weekend and I made a landfill contribution on Friday.  I now have a clear path to my 29-4 Shoe Patcher.

  I picked this machine up at a local auction for $25 but would have paid $50 for someone to load it into my minivan for me - It is a MONSTER!  I was surprised to get the machine that sells in the $400 range on Ebay for such a low price, especially because it is treadle-operated and there were several Amish bidders in the house.
  The decals are not complete, but more prevalent than many because these machines were used in shoe factories and saw a lot of use.

  I took the machine home and put it in the storage shed, intending to get to it later - I never did.  When we moved to our present house four years ago, I put it in the garage and piled lawn furniture, bicycles, yard working equipment, and a table saw in front of it and have never dug it out to tinker with it.

  I hope it works because Kathie bought a carrying case for her Janome Jem

and one end of the zipper did not get caught in the sewing process.

I tried to repair it on a flatbed machine but just can't get the fabric to lay down flat enough to sew it.  I have tacked it by hand for now but would like to effect a permanent repair by machine and the 29 is the only machine I have that might do the job. It has a narrow free arm and the feeding foot rotates to feed the fabric in any direction.

Ed's Vintage Sewing Machine Shop

Industrial Sewing Machines for Home Use

Everyone knows that industrial machines sew better, last longer, and are more reliable than domestic sewing machines but many sewists are reluctant to acquire one due to the size, weight, speed, and noise.  The noise is attributed to the clutch motor that runs all the time and only powers the sewing head when the operator steps on the pedal and energizes the clutch.

This noise problem has been overcome in recent years by the DC servomotor that acts like a domestic foot controlled motor - it does not run (makes no noise) unless the operator steps on the pedal, then the motor spins the sewing machine.  While the servomotor solves the noise problem, it still has to be mounted in a power stand so the issues of size and weight are still present.

Many years ago, I obtained a Singer 95-10 tailoring machine.  It had a clutch motor but I didn't have a belt to fit and my parts bin had several motors, belts, and foot controls, so I decided to try powering it with a motor off a home machine.  To my surprise, the machine worked quite well and sewed everything I put under the presser foot. It was still mounted in a power stand but I had the space so that was not a problem.

When I got my Singer 20U-33, I bought only the head.  I saw that there were motor bracket mounting provisions below the balance wheel that looked like those on a home machine so I bolted a motor from an old Brother in place and sewed away.

My internet friend Rich in Tennessee carried things a bit further, he built a wooden box to hold the sewing head and a motor mount and powered a big, honkin' walking foot upholstery machine with a domestic motor. Rich has solved the issues of size, noise, and speed.  Don't think that his is a portable though, it probably weighs in the 60-70 pound range.

You would think that a little 1/15 horsepower motor would not spin an industrial machine designed for a 1/4 - 3/4 hp motor but the answer is in the sizes of the pulleys. The pulley on the 1/3 hp clutch motor pictured above is 11 inches in circumference.  It drives a balance wheel that is also 11 inches in circumference. The motor pulley on a domestic machine is 3 inches in circumference, so there is almost a 4-1 reduction and the 1/15 hp motor appears to be much more powerful.

This solves another issue of industrial machines - the speed.  Many are intimidated by 3500 stitches per minute but with a 4-1 reduction, the machine will only sew about 900 SPM with a domestic motor - the same speed as the average domestic machine.  That speed is more easily controlled by the foot control and the operator doesn't need to learn the procedure for operating a clutch motor.

Food for thought