Happy Birthday Camilla!

[xiphmont]

Camilla's modern Brother sewing machine has been giving her trouble, and she's been looking for something bulletproof to use for simple lockstitch. When we went to Ohio to visit my family over Christmas, she snagged a WWII-era Singer model 66-18 'Godzilla' from Goodwill for $15 as a birthday self-gift. It needed a little (actually, precious little) maintenance and one or two parts, which was my half of the gift.

The 66-18 was a slightly stripped down 66-16 that intentionally left out several minor features. The body is heavier, the sleeve bearings thicker, the belt guard and automatic-release bobbin winder are eliminated and the one-turn tensioner with numeric markings was replaced with an unmarked multi-turn tensioner (which was sturdier if less convenient).

I made a new part to replace a cracked bakelite power cord punch-down, replaced some amount of disintegrated natural rubber insulation in the motor, replaced the belt, oiled it, and aligned the timing as per the Singer service manual (available as a pdf from the Singer website). I also scrounged up an original owners manual for a 66-16 (scans here) which oddly is not on the Singer website, and a 66-16 model belt guard, bobbin winder and tensioner to give it back the bits that were dropped during wartime. The belt guard required some machining to fit (due to the 66-18's thicker sleeves) and a flat black powder coat matched it fairly well to the rest of the machine's finish.

All done!

Now she can amuse herself with the bottomless boxes of clever fussy attachments given to her by my mother. I like the one that looks like a can opener.

Comments

[coraline]

i love my sphinx model 127 though i ned to put the new treadle belt on her so i can get around to using her...

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, that is a beauty.

[wendyhouse.livejournal.com]

you, may I say, rock.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful. (This message brought to you by the perils of tabbed browsers, which let me open a tab intending to comment and not actually see the page for two weeks.)

Singer 66-16 manual as a pdf or zip of all jpg files

[(Anonymous)]

Hello:

I just purchased a quite nice Singer Model 66-16-65 and was having trouble finding a manual pdf. I was wondering if it might be possible to get a zip file of all of the 66-16 manual jpgs so it could be downloaded as one file. That would help immensely.

Anyway, the 66-16 is a fine old machine, and it purrs like a kitten (not quite as nice as a 201, but pretty close.

One question that I have is..... is it possible to use a large treadle handwheel from an early 15, 27, or such and adapt it to a 66 so that it might run slower and smoother on an external motor? I would like to slow the machine down, yet keep the motor running in a higher speed higher torque range, yet have the mechanicals run at about a treadle speed, if that is possible.

Many Thanks!
An olde cast iron machine fellow, Bob.....