I GIVE UP (for the time being)!! I want to sew on a treadle machine NOW and IF Mammie’s machine ever sews again, it will be months/years before it will. At the moment, I’m overwhelmed by the amount of work still left to do on it. I’ll probably invest in a sonic parts cleaner before making further attempts. I WANT TO SEW!
Because the pieces of Mammie’s treadle cabinet were beyond repair, I’ve been collecting the cheapest Singer cabinet parts I’ve been able to find. I wasn’t sure these parts would work with the National machine but National cabinet parts are near impossible to find (or afford). I didn’t want to spend a lot of money in case the Singer parts required radical modification. Thankfully (for me) there are lots of cheap bits and pieces available on eBay®.
Since I’m on sabbatical from cleaning the National, I decided to use the irons with a different machine head. I’d already purchased enough Singer bits to assemble a complete cabinet, so I thought a Singer head would be the wisest next purchase. I’ve been observing price increases since I’ve made other vintage machine purchases, so I figured I should get a treadle head while the getting is good. There are many available but I’d hoped to find something with ‘meaning’. I found just the one!
When I was a toddler, my mother owned a Singer model 66 treadle machine. I often sat under that machine and worked the treadle with my little hands as she fed fabric through the machine. When I was finally tall enough to stand with one foot on the treadle peddle and my nose just over the table edge to see the needle, I was allowed to run scrap fabric through the machine. I made lots of doll blankets, mudpie cup towels and playhouse curtains.
I found what I felt was a bargain for the right machine. There is no rust and the identical decals to my mom’s are in good shape. I tested it and she sews fine without adjustments. She was also manufactured May 19, 1925, the same year as Mammie’s National machine.
I assembled the cabinet and was only required to make a few modifications. In order to align the belt between the machine and treadle, I had to off-center the cabinet top. No biggie! In order for the center drawer to fit, I was forced to hang the side drawer frames further away from the irons, making it impossible to use the drawer frame hooks. No one will ever notice. When the machine top and lid were shipped, the hinges were damaged so I replaced them with other vintage hinges. Still no big deal. The biggest deal came when adding the cabinet underbelly and back (one unit). The belt didn’t align with the underbelly, requiring some modification. It only shows for small dogs and very short people and the dogs don’t seem to notice.
The cabinet back didn’t hang low enough to reach
to the treadle brace. There was nothing I could figure out to modify the wood that wouldn’t look awful so I used some carriage bolts, washers and nuts along with the unused drawer frame hooks. It’s not the most beautiful solution but will look better after I blacken the bolts with shoe polish or Magic Marker. DH says it looks like something a GIRL would do, but hey, I qualify! He offered no better solution! At least the hooks are genuine vintage Singer parts! OK, I admit thankfully this is the back of the cabinet and who is going to notice besides those same small dogs and very short people?!
And now, I would like to present…….
FRANKENTREADLE!!!
IT’S ALIIIIIIVVVEEEEE!!!
It’s shabby-chic without that little bit of puke in my mouth! It’s steampunk without the steam or punk or weird hair cut! Someday, I may refinish the cabinet to make the individual parts more closely match but at the moment, I like it this way! Until then, I CAN SEW!!!
Shirl