The Beast: Singer 191J

  The Beast: the Singer 191J.

There are sewing machines and there are sewing machines. when I got this one, it had not been used in years, and it seemed to resent being woken up and put back to use. It was noisy clattery, slow and had bad wiring connections. So I fixed the wiring, flushed out the old grease on the  gear drive with new, lubricated, cleaned and tuned it up.

Now, it's a cocky beast. It laughed at me when I shoved 7 layers of Sunbrella under the presser foot. I swear it actually sneered at a 1/4 of soft vegetable tanned leather. Spit it out the back perfectly sewn, and wanted some more...... I don't know if I should be proud of it or send it to reform school....sigh...All I know is that the devil makes work for idle sewing machines, so it needs someone to keep it busy and out of trouble...

 

So, if you need a straight stitcher for sewing sails, upholstery or light leathers this is the machine for you.

Tough as it is though, it will still do all your normal day to day sewing as well.

Naked came the Kenmore!

Have ever wondered whats inside the shiny white plastic sewing machines that you see in department stores?

Here is Kenmore 385.15423 that had to have it's covers removed for repair (with great difficulty).

It's not an attractive view of the machine, but you were never meant to see it anyway.

What it is though, is: surprisingly sturdy and well built for the price point it was sold for, of less than $150.

Now to decide, if I put those covers back on,

or sell it as the Naked Kenmore lol