Sail and Sunbrella sewers

 Here is an innocuous looking pair of Japanese straight stitchers. from the 1950's and 60's. the American Home machine is kind of bland, but the cream and blue Woodwards is quite pretty.

Don't be fooled by their looks though. these area pair of kick ass sewing machines, set up for light leathers and tough fabrics like Sunbrella!

How this came to be is an interesting story. Both thses machines are Japanese versions of the Singer model 15, which in it's final evolution
 became the 15-91, which is the machine that
 every one wants for heavy duty sewing.

Now the model 15 was first introduced in the 1880's when the majority of people lived on farms. They were designed to sew what ever could be found on those farms, everything from satins and cottons up to heavy canvas and leathers. They did this all quite well, because back then, they came as hand cranks and
treadles. Now a days, we forget just how strong our arms and legs are. It was that strength that gave the machines the piercing power needed to penetrate tough fabrics.

But then along came electrification and people started moving off the farms and into the cities. heavy duty sewing became less common and 50-60 watt motors were found to work for most sewing. there the matter stood, generally, small motors and lighter sewing till the15-91 came along. It's unique gear drive and spring loaded balance wheel, allowed the machine to get up the speed to piece heavy fabrics again. The mechanical advantage of this arrangement, effectively doubled the power of the machine from 50 to 100 watts.

In the 1960's, the zig zag machine came along. These had a lot more moving parts and required a bigger motor, which led to the introduction of the 130 watt motor to drive them.

Now if you take a very easy to turn model 15 or Japanese copy of it, and give it a 130 watt motor, and it looks pretty, you have a sleeper. It will sew all the normal stuff quite nicely, but turn it loose on heavy duty fabrics, it comes into it's own. Set up correctly, 6 layers of denim, 4 layers of light light leather? No problem! Bring it on sucker.......

More adventures with paint

Yup, it's an orange model 15.

It's an experiment, well that's what I told myself. It was going to be an experiment and the chance to make a few bucks. How hard can it be to paint a sewing machine?

The truth of course, is that I like bright colors. So many black and gold Singers have passed through my hands, that I look forward to the colorful clones. So when a beat up looking Feather Weight came my way, I got an opportunity to play with paint some more.

Rattle can painting requires some skill, but with some of the modern paints available, not necessarily a whole lot, and I have this 15 that I have robbed all the parts from, so I figured that I was in  like Flint. Strip the Feather Weight and practice painting.

 So, this model 15 went from black, to blue to yellow to orange, as the 221 went from black down to bare aluminum. The Japanned paint on the on 221 is not easy to strip. It took many coats of stripper, Saran wrap and steel wool to get it bare.

Then a coat of primer....

Then a lot of sanding to get the surface of the the self etching primer flat enough for paint.......

Finally, I get to put on some color...and I have to sand that flat enough for decals and clear coats.....

It turns out that applying the paint is easy......It's all the stripping, sanding, cleaning that's smelly boring and tedious, and occasionally painful, when you get some of the stripper on your hands.

Still, you have to admit that the orange is great color for the model 15, and the yellow version was hot too, and then there is the possibility for fire engine red as well. I am thinking, that if I put aside some of my more beat up looking machines, next summer, when the weather is warm again and I won't have to run a heater in the shed, I could make some really great looking sewing machines!

Put your orders in now folks....

It's an experiment, just an experiment, that's what I told myself. Just an experiment........