Tuesday, May 3, 2011

THE SINGER "66 RED EYE"

My interest in sewing machines began when my wife purchased A "SINGER MODEL 66 RED EYE" from our neighbor's estate sale last year.  They call it a "Red Eye" because of the red eye shaped decals on the decals. 
It sat in our garage, alone, forgotten for several months.  One day my daughter and I hauled it into the house just to make room in the garage.  I knew nothing nor really cared much for sewing machines.  I Never used one and they seemed mysterious and complicated as well.  
For fun, I tried to move the hand wheel and nothing moved......that was it!  The ancient iron beast sucked me in.  I just had to figure out why it's frozen up.  I polished it a bit, tinkered, studied it and began to be impressed by the beauty and engineering of this old lady.  I removed the "head" (the machine part,)  from the oak table, and carried the hernia maker to my workbench.  Slowly I began to "reverse-engineer" the apparatus, and slowly began to unravel the mystery of the sewing machine.  Like all my tinker projects, I quickly became obsessed with it.  I just had to bring it back to life.  I discovered broken old parts that are surely unobtainable in these high tech times we live in.  But behold....the power of EBAY!!  Searching Ebay turned up everything I need to bring the 66 back to full operation.  I spent many ours of fun and frustration working on this machine, and it brought such a sense of satisfaction when it started to clickety clack again, good as new like the day it was manufactured. The Singer not only looks great, it also does a fantastic job of sewing.  My daughter prefers foot power to electric, she claims that it's much easier to control the speed. I wouldn't know,  I'm no seamstress, just a Tinkerer.




The SINGER "66 REDEYE" sewing machine

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