What a Difference a Day Makes...

[sakon76]

For comparison: the treadle yesterday, condition at time of purchase.



And the treadle after one day of elbow grease. Haven't touched the treadling mechanisms yet, have been mostly concerned with the easy stuff: the woodwork. And also prying bits and pieces off the machine and tossing them to soak in Evapo-Rust, but I have no before-and-after pictures of that yet. Got the foot off, though, and realized it was a slant foot. A 15 takes a low-shank foot. WTF? OTOH, I also got the bobbin mechanism, mm, halfway undone, and was pleased to discover a bobbin in it. Was particularly pleased to realize that I had about a dozen more of that same bobbin sitting idle in a drawer of my sewing desk. Have placed them all in one of the treadle cabinet's drawers instead. ^_^

What I did to the woodwork: a scrubbing with Murphy's Oil Soap, followed by application of Old English Scratch Cover (light color), then Old English Lemon Oil, then today Howard's Feed and Wax. The center drawer and the upper right drawer are each missing a bit of their veneer; I'm not sure yet what I'll do about that. I have a thought nibbling at me that I could potentially take some of the veneer off the top and fussy-cut it and glue it on, but I'll likely wait on that until I'm resurfacing the cabinet top.

Since I have my car back now (borrowed my parents' truck for the weekend to pick up this machine and also take a dresser to Goodwill) and vastly prefer parking in the garage, the cabinet has been moved to our back bedroom (its eventual permanent home anyway), and its shattered top covered by a runner as we will have a guest staying in that room next weekend. My next step on the cabinet will be gluing down some of the loose veneer on the drawers, using the c-clamps and wood glue I borrowed tonight from my father. And possibly a butter knife to spread the glue underneath the veneer...

ETA: Ha, my suspicions were correct! Singer had about three different key styles for their sewing machine locks. Maggie's box uses a flat key. I just tried it on the three locks for the treadle cabinet, and gratifyingly, all three worked! I was half-expecting the locking mechanisms to be as rusted as the sewing machine....