Singer 301

I adopted another Black Singer 301 yesterday. I had to rescue it. The pictures of it I saw on Craigslist made me sad. I had to help it!

My Singer Story dot com tells me that this machine was born in 1951. She is about old enough to retire!

This is how it looked when we brought it home. It was full of lint and pet hair. It did come with an instruction manual and accessories.

The extension bed, unfortunately, has lots of scratches.

The inside of the case was dirty, and the ‘arm’ that holds the cord was laying in the bottom. The oil can holder you see on the right was only half there, so I took it the rest of the way off.

I vacuumed it out and put the cord holder back on.

It wouldn’t sew, but I knew just what to look for. I have read up a lot on the Singer Featherweights (which this is not), and the 301’s. They have the same bobbins and bobbin mechanism setup. They are notorious for getting threads caught in the works, behind the bobbin mechanisms. Look what I pulled out.

It was a bit noisy, but I got it quieted down by oiling in just the right places, and I got it sew. It was being stubborn, but in the end, I won.

Louie worked on buffing the scratches out for me, using a Scratch and Swirl remover for dark colored cars, found at auto supply stores, and although he could not get them to go away, I think it does look much better. The surface shines, as you can see the reflection of my ceiling fan and the machine itself. I do wish whoever owned it originally would have protected the extension when they folded it up and put it away.

I know. I can’t expect ‘like new’ when it is celebrated 62 birthdays, but in a perfect world, it would be!