Singer Sewing Machine Saturday

Last summer, my husband, Larry, decided to learn to refurbish antique Singer sewing machines.   To that end, we scoured Craig's list and came up with these two beauties for $15 each:  Singer 128s from 1922 in varying stages of decrepitude.  Both were locked up with rust, but had all their innards and most of their exterior bits.

He selected one to start with and started documenting its dis assembly - that's a long post for another day.  As you can see, we didn't destroy a museum piece, we rescued a boat anchor.

Here it is a few months ago, wearing its final finish and partially restored.  Larry has actually gotten it back to sewing condition since this picture was taken; however, the finish got chipped during reconstruction, so it's back in the garage being repaired.  

We chose Tahitian Black Pearl for the finish, and went with the Celtic decal set instead of the original Sphinx, because the Celtic set was much cheaper.  (I applied the water slide decals, and, since this was my first time, I didn't want to waste so much money if I ruined them.)

It took months to remove the finish with paint remover and scraping.  Larry has since gotten a sand blaster that is much faster.  He was also just learning how to use an airbrush, so I think this has about three coats of (really ugly) primer, five coats of Tahitian Black Pearl and another five coats of glossy clear coat.

We now own eight vintage Singers in various stages of decay, so this is just the first installation of Singer Sewing Machine Saturday.

Happy quilting!