Singer

From Madwiki

I inherited a 1941 electric, gear-driven Model 15 Singer Sewing machine. The machine was in great condition except that the insulation around the wires had dissolved in the 60 years since its construction. Here, I document the steps I took to redo the wiring over the course of about a week: 4 days deliberation, 2 days destruction, 1 day reconstruction.

There were three wires to redo: The wire to the lamp, the wire to the controller, and the wire to the motor. The first two were relatively straightforward. By carefully removing screws and saving them (hard to replace screws this old), and keeping track of white/black wires, I found pegs at the end of each wire which were easy to wind new wire around.

I took the motor apart by undoing screws around the hand treadle portion of the machine until I could remove it from the main part of the machine. I cleaned off the melted rubber with rubbing alcohol as I worked.

Here you can see a close up of the motor. The wire insulation was dissolved all the way into the coils shown here. I gave up for a couple of days at this point before I got help from dad taking this motor apart further. The middle picture is a poor image of a tricky stage, where you have to remove a plate that holds the coils in place.

The coils were in decent shape so all I had to do was wrap the existing wire with electrical tape from motor to ends and shove the coils back into place. Then I reassembled the motor. The lamp and controller were easily reconnected by replacing the wires with new, snazzy blue wire. The pictures I took early on were helpful in keeping the wire connections straight as I went. The final product is a great sewing machine that runs wonderfully.

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