Here we have a 1889 Singer VS2 with "Floral" decals. Serial number 8693116.
Several years ago I spotted this machine for sale on Craigslist. Once again, it wasn't local. It was located in northern NJ up by NY. From the pictures in the ad I could tell that the decals were in pretty good condition. As this was early on in my sewing machine collecting, I had never seen these decals before....and I couldn't find examples of them on the internet. I thought they were maybe a one-off or something super rare. Well, I was wrong. They were not a one-off but they are pretty rare to find in good condition.
I tried to contact the seller to inquire on the machine but got no response for weeks. I was almost to the point of giving up. And even if they did respond and I could buy the machine, it would be a 12 hour drive!! To my surprise, one day the owner finally responded. After some discussion and negotiating I made an agreement to buy the machine.
Now the question how to get the machine from northern NJ to Pittsburgh! Well, I got really lucky here. My sister (who lives in California), was flying to Boston to pick up a family SUV from one of her sons to deliver the car to another son in Chicago. She had planned to stop in Pittsburgh on her trip from Boston to Chicago. She agreed to pick up the machine and deliver it to me. How lucky is that?
When I received the machine I was pleasantly surprise that it was in even better shape than I thought. I didn't immediately start cleaning it....as a matter of fact, I did nothing with the machine for well over a year as I wasn't super confident in my sewing machine refurbishing skills. But, after a while I finally got up enough guts to tackle the job. The machine was disassembled, cleaned and polished. I was surprised how well the body of machine responded to the cleaning/polishing without having negative affects on the decals. Now the machine, is fully functional, beautiful and sews a perfect stitch.
This machine deserves a bunch of pictures. Especially since you don't see this decal in such good shape too often. The pictures are sequenced in before and after shots so you can clearly see the difference between the two.
Evey, I thought I had the most beautiful VS2 in the world, but this one takes the prize! I just LOVE it! I think this is my favorite of all of singer's decals. What a gorgeous machine. Have you done any posts on how you clean and restore, and what you use for finishing? The machines I've restored look good, but not great. I would really love to learn more.
ReplyDeleteIt's Molly from the singer 12 blog. :o)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind comments Molly! I love this decal set also and was lucky to find this one. Most other examples I've seen haven't survived very well.
ReplyDeleteThere are many different aspects of cleaning and refurbishing sewing machines. Is there any particular aspect you have questions about?
Cleaning and refurbishing the mechanics of the machines, removing rust and getting them working well is no problem for me. But I'm wondering how you get the finish to look so perfect? Do you take the old shellac off? Do you have particular products you use? I clean with sewing machine oil, and it looks great for a couple of days but then goes back to being dull. I've tried using car wax and other waxes but they don't seem to really improve the old finish. Feed and wax is my currant go to, but I don't know how good that is for the machine long term. I'd to try shellac, and I just saw a mention of TR3 resin glaze (I think it was called) that I want to look into. Just don't know what it needs.
ReplyDeleteGetting the shellac finish to look really good depends on the condition of the shellac to begin with. I tailor the cleaning to what the machine needs. If the machine is in really nice shape I may only use sewing machine oil to clean. This machine in particular I did use TR-3, Zimol cleaner wax, and sewing machine oil. With TR-3 you do have to be careful that your shellac is in pretty decent shape. It will remove a slight amount of shellac and decal if you're not careful. That said I love the stuff....but it's getting hard to find and expensive. A while back I stocked up on several cans. Anyway, if the finish on a machine is really bad I've resorted to adding shellac and french polishing. An example is one of the Blackside 15-91's in my post on this blog. Also, if the finish just isn't salvageable I've stripped machines completely down to bare metal and painted and applied new decals. I've only done that once as it's a lot of work. What condition is the machine you're working on? I might be able to guide you base on it's condition.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to know how you restored the nickel plated parts, such as the handwheel, etc. I have machines with some rust and have no idea how to best clean and preserve them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your question. I use a buffing wheel and various buffing compounds to polish metal parts. A sisal buffing wheel and emery compoud are good for removing rust.
DeleteI have this machine and the decals aren't in great shape, I think. I did wipe it over with machine oil and more of them showed through. I love her so much and I am so afraid of messing up what is there. I also contacted the man that makes the decals for singer and some others. He said he didn't have these, and he would have to have one to copy them from to make them. Have you ever thought about having yours be a sample for those decals? Anyway, back to my question. Is there a way to send pictures of mine and get suggestions of how bad it is and what is best to do next? Thank You
ReplyDeleteHonestly, no, I haven't thought of having my machine used as a sample for decals to be made. Multiple people are reproducing decals and I think that most of them are not doing a good job of recreating them and I don't really want to contribute to that. If I were going to reproduce the decals I would just do it myself. In regards to your machine, are you the person who asked to see my decals for this machine on FB? If so, you can private message me pictures of your machine and I can provide feedback.
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