White Rotary

This is a really lovely machine.  It is almost noiseless. I bought it from the grandson of the original owner. My husband was lovely about it, too.  We had to drive quite a ways, and he was very placido about the whole thing.  I did get rid of two cabinets, and now I need to off load three other machines to keep all my promises to him about the collection size. 

It had spent time- maybe forty years- in a dry but hot garage.  I played it safe and cleaned only with sewing machine oil.  This is before cleaning.  As you can see from the first picture, it cleaned up fairly well.

Here is the mission oak cabinet with the machine up.  The bottom of the legs open.  The fronts are doors.  Each drawer and door has it's own little lock.  I will be looking for a key!

Here it is, closed.  I wire brushed the treadle, but haven't done anything else to it.  hidden from view at the bottom of the legs are little recesses castors. The only damage is that one drawer.

Here's the name on the front- all still there!  So lucky!  The next picture shows the machine, looking down on it as I am lowering it into the cabinet.  Singer machines lower from the hinges on the back side, away from the operator.  This one lowers from the front side.  Although, there are still hinges in the back, to tilt the machine up and oil underneath and clear thread snarls at the bobbin. See the inlaid ruler, on the front?

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I have put a treadle belt on it, and it runs really smooth and quiet.  It took a few (hundred) tries to get the treadle belt on.  First I made a mistake punching the hole- it went off center and tore the edge of the leather belt.  Then, I unwittingly (witlessly) threaded the belt in the incorrect path, so it looked as though it were many inches too short.  i was puzzled by this, because I measured against the old, broken belt, but I thought maybe a piece was missing.  I dorked around for a while, trying to figure out how I was going to lengthen the belt I had already cut.  I settled for using silk thread to sew the cut belt back together.  Silk has a pretty high tensile strength, so I hoped it would last until i could order a new belt and have it arrive.After putting the staple in, again, to connect the ends of the belt, i found that the belt was getting caught in the flywheel.  I lay on the floor, turning the flywheel by hand, until I realized that the belt was going through the wrong path. I threaded it correctly and discovered...that the belt had been cut to the right length, and so I needed to cut off my silk thread repair.  Then it worked just fine.  At the length I had originally cut it, a full hour before.I'll try sewing on it tomorrow.  Tonight, it might make my head explode.