If you have an old Singer sewing machine please look at the electrical cords before you plug it in! Old cords can be very dangerous and you should never operate a machine when the cords have been compromised in any way. I've had a bad experience myself when exposed wires sparked at the base of the machine and started an electrical fire all the way down the cord to the wall outlet like it was a stick of dynamite!
This picture shows you how bad they can get. It looks like these wires got hot enough that the casing melted and have now left wires exposed! Look to the right and you'll see the casing is dry and brittle and tearing open.
This isn't a very good picture unfortunately but with this machine the wires were so brittle that they crumbled with the slightest movement. As soon as I unscrewed the terminal from the machine pieces of the casing fell to the ground. See how exposed the wires are!?
This poor Singer 201 had the cords melted onto it and the casing on the cords got so hot at one point I could see how it actually dripped down and made a petrified puddle on the base of the machine.
After I managed to get the motor off this is what the cords looked like.
After a re-wire this is what it ended up looking like. Much better!
Doing a re-wire is easy if you can solder two wires together (or find someone who can). A total re-wire of the motor takes me about 2 hours and that includes cleaning all the housing and adding new lubricants.
Here's what the process of a motor re-wire looks like:
Doing my first re-wire I spent about $50 getting all the necessary pieces and it took about 7 days to find everything and in some cases, get it shipped to me. Because it was so much work and so expensive I decided to put little kits together to make it easier for anyone else.
HERE'S WHAT THE KIT CONTAINS:
OTHER ITEMS YOU'LL NEED:
Wire strippers, soldering iron and Singer motor lubricant
Of course I can't take credit for figuring out how to re-wire a sewing machine motor. Thanks to the Vintage Sewing Machine Blog with step-by-step instructions I was able to learn how to solder and re-wire up to a dozen machines in just a few years!
Labels: electrical, re-wire sewing machine, restoration, sewing machine, Singer
