Meet Gertie!

This is Gertie! I found her on Kijiji! For years I have been looking for the one my dad refinished, never to find her. This is the second one I went to see and she's a beauty! I know I have a lot of work ahead of me to get her ready -- but she stitches beautifully now. The owner brought her from Belgium. Chef and I did some research and we believe she's a model 128. The manual that came with, said Model 27, but the serial numbers don't match. All the parts are working, but they need a good cleaning. The previous owner would put her down without taking the leather belt off, thus stretching the belt a bit too much. Easy repair. Gertie dates back to 1926. Her serial number indicates they made 20,000 of these babies, so she's not really "rare" at all. She has a vibrating shuttle and she has a shuttle ejector button. That's all I know for now! 

Her cabinet is quite nice, but certainly not the original. She's been refinished somewhat, but it will do for a long time before I decide to get a better job done. You can see the decals on the machine are still all there. 

 Her shank has a screw that is permanently in there. We have some WD40 soaking right now in hopes that the screw will come off so we can try the other feet! A little box came along with the machine with all these feet! You'll notice there are a couple of duplicates in there! I will have to see if I can find a manual on line for it. Otherwise I am really happy with it!

 She needs a good cleaning -- I am still looking for instructions on THAT part! I heard my dad's voice in my head as I was taking a bit of her apart saying, "Remember when you took Mom's Singer apart and we had to take it to the repair shop?" Those memories are making me take a step back and do a little bit at a time as I learn.

 Look at all that gunk! Wonder how old that gunk is?

The inside gears don't seem too bad. Off the bat she sews really nice. I tried to wind the bobbin, but of course you need the belt -- so I had to handwind it!

It's my first crack at a vintage machine! If anyone out there has any suggestions on how to go about servicing her, I would sure appreciate the input!

Happy Quilting Everyone!
Margo