A few weeks ago I picked up this little sewing machine locally. It's a Salter's IDEAL chainstitch sewing machine that was made in the very early 1920's in Britian. There is a lot of information on the internet about the short lived history of the company and these machines so I'm not going to repeat what everyone else has written. But, what I would like to do is talk a little bit about the widely accepted opinion on the model's A and B and their differences. Below is the picture that was in the FB ad that I replied to when purchasing the machine.
First, before we talk about the machine differences, just a few little tid bits about these machines. These machines are fully nickel plated and their styling screams Art Deco. It's a very nice looking machine but honestly isn't easy to sewing with. The machines did have manufacturing quality issues and also had difficulties finding it's place in the marketplace (dispite heavy advertising) and therefore didn't sell very well. They only made these machines for a couple of years so they aren't common although I know several people that own one (or more!)
Everything you read on the internet about these machines states that there was a model A and a model B. Model A's were produced starting in 1921 but quickly the company determine that there were things with the machine that needed improvement so they put out the model B in 1922 to address those issues. Most of what is documented on the internet states that the machines had the following characteristics:
Model A
- No Faceplate
- No adjustable presser foot
- " IDEAL" "PAT. UK. 30264" verbiage on the cloth plate of the machine
- "A" was cast into the bottom casting of the machine
Model B
- Faceplate with "IDEAL" branding
- Adjustable presser foot
- "British Manufacture" added to the verbiage above on the cloth plate
- "B" was cast into the bottom casting of the machine.
Most people say that these characteristics are what distinguish a model A from a model B. I personally don't agree with this line of thought. For example, my machine has a faceplate, adjustable presser foot, and has "British Manufacture" on the cloth plate. Based on the information on the internet my machine should have a "B" on the bottom of the machine....but it doesn't, it has an "A" on the bottom of the machine. See picture below.
Some friends from the Victorian Sweatshop(VSS) Forum and I have started gathering information regarding these machines in hopes of determining the true differences and history of these machines. I personally have started documenting all of the IDEAL machines that I see and recording all of the characteristics of the machines. I'm hoping to see some patterns in the data that will tell their story. There are a few challenges in gathering this information though. First, these machines have no serial numbers on them so there is no way of putting them in order of when they were made. Secondly, to determine if an "A" or a "B" is in the casting on the bottom of the machine you have to take the cloth plate off of the machine and then remove the machine from it's wood base. Most of the pictures on the internet don't show the bottom of the machine so therefore you can't really tell what letter is on the bottom of the machine. Some people on the internet say their machine is an "A" or a "B" but they appear to be basing that on the characteristics listed above and don't show any proof of what letter is on bottom of the machine.
Through help from people on VSS who own these machines and pictures on the internet, I've collected information on 24 of these machines so far. Unfortunately, I only have proof of the letter on the bottom of machine for 8 of those 24 machines.
Based on this data, it doesn't appear that the "A" and "B" has anything to do with the charateristics that are widely accepted with model "A" and model "B" machines.
Of the 8 machines where I have proof of the letter on the bottom of the machine, 3 of those machines have an "A" on the bottom and 5 have "B" on the bottom.
Of the 3 "A" machines,
- 1 does not have a face plate, 2 do have face plates.
- 1 has a non-adjustable presser foot, 2 have an adjustable presser foot.
- 2 do not have "British Manufacture" on the cloth plate, 1 does have "British Manufacture" on the cloth plate.
So therefore, basically 2 of the 3 "A" machines have characteristics of a "B" machine!
Of the 5 "B" machines,
- 3 do not have a face plate, 2 of them do have a face plate.
- 3 have a non-adjustable presser foot, 2 have an adjustable presser foot.
- All 5 machines have "British Manufacture" on the cloth plate.
So therefore, 3 of these "B" machines have some characteristics of an "A" machine!
As you can see, the data is all over the place and doesn't match the widely accepted distinguishing characteristics of "A" and "B" machines. Granted, my dataset is very small at this point but it already clearly doesn't fit the mold.
It's clear that Salter made improvements to the machines. Those improvements included adding a faceplate, adding an adjustable presser foot, adding "British Manufacture" to the cloth plate, in addition to other improvements including an improved presser foot lift mechnism, and spool pin improvements. But I don't think the "B" cast into the bottom of the machine designates machines with those improvements. My current theory is that the "A" and "B" cast in the bottom of the machines identifies what molds were used to cast the machines. If an issue arose with the casting of the machine the manufacturer would be able to trace back which mold it came from and therefore which mold had the issue. This practice was used by other manufacturers like Singer except Singer used a lot more molds given the number of machines that it was producing. This is only a theory at this point given the little amount of data that I've collected thus far. I will update this post as myself and my friends at VSS learn more about these machines.
Anyway, enough of my opinions on the "A"s and "B"s!
Below are pictures of my machine on the day that I brought it home. As you can see it needed a good cleaning but was in overall good condition. Actually, this was one of the easiest machines to clean as I didn't have to worry about damaging delicate machine decoration. I basically just soaked the machine in Krud Kutter to remove the old oil and dirt.....then I just polished the machine. My machine did come with it's original "lunch box" metal lid which has it's fair share of wear but often they are lost so I consider myself lucky that it remained with the machine through the years. The one thing my machine was missing was it's spool pin. These machines are notorious for loosing their spool pins and many of the machines that I've see are missing this part. My machine is interesting in the fact that the spool pin hole is tapped. This is the only machine I've seen with a tapped spool pin hole so I assume that someone got tired of the spool pin falling out so they tapped the hole to secure the spool pin in place.....but that doesn't provide a good explanation for why the spool pin was missing! I made a new spool pin by first determining the pitch of the threads that were tapped into the machine. Then I made a spool pin but cutting the head off a stainless steel bolt, rounding the end of the pin, and then polishing. I was able to get my machine to sew using a 12x1 needle. It sews a nice stitch but as mentioned before it's not easy to sew with as the machine wants to move around a lot and the movement of the machine is not the smoothest in operation.
The following pictures are after I cleaned the machine. As you can see, they are impressive looking machines when polished up! I was happy to find this machine and add it to my collection.
IDEAL
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