Treadles

Look the treadles over carefully, and make sure that they have their bobbins, shuttles, and attachments in the drawers. Singers are quite easy to find parts for, but the Brunswick was made by the National/Eldredge Co. and would be more of a challenge to get up and running if it's not all there. I'd also suggest taking along a sewing machine needle to compare with the one in the machine, to make sure it uses a standard size. Most Singer machines use a regular needle, but the Singer 9W uses a hard-to-find and no longer made needle, so would avoid getting one of those. If anything is missing on the machine, such as the slide plates, needle clamp, anything at all, don't buy it--only buy a complete machine in very nice condition. There are too many very nice machines out there to saddle yourself with a rehab project. (That said, if one of the machines (and its cabinet) is in very nice shape and complete, $150 would not be out of line. Sometimes you'll luck out and nobody else will want it, so wait to bid until the auctioneer gets down nice and low, or start the bidding at $10 or so if you can.) If you see that everything is there, take a ziplock bag and take the loose bits up to the auction folks and ask them to hold them until the machine is auctioned, as they have been known to disappear during the auction, and the new owner comes back to the machine to find slide plates, attachments, bobbins, etc. have mysteriously disappeared. Take a screwdriver with you, and remove the head to transport it home. If you turn the head back, you should find two grub screws at the back of the head right at the hinges--loosen these, and the head will lift off the hinges. Snug them back in a couple of turns to make sure they don't get lost on the ride home. I usually set the head on the floor of the car behind the front seat--it can't fall off of there and break anything. The treadle irons, even though they are cast iron, are rather fragile, since the iron is brittle, and it's best to turn it upside down for the ride home, on an old blanket to protect the wood top. Remove the drawer contents first, of course, or just slide the drawers out for the ride home.

Pat in Rockport, TX