A Clean Machine. Sort of.

A quick wipe with a damp rag to take off the top layer of dust didn't go far to improving the old girl's looks, alas.

I was pretty sure that Gojo would melt away most of the dirt, though it meant being careful around the decorative decals. So I slathered that on and let it sit for about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, when I wiped it off, nothing had changed. There was a layer of dried gummy dirt that would not budge. I tried rubbing it with oil, I tried automotive bug and tar remover, I tried castile soap and a soft toothbrush, I tried 409 -- nothing was working! What was the deal? What was this stuff, and how was it resisting all the usual tried-and-true cleaning methods? Finally I tried straight 70% isopropyl alcohol -- rubbing alcohol from the supermarket. And it worked! It also wanted to take the decals off, so I had to work carefully around them, removing as much dirt as I could without stripping the gold and color from the decoration.

The greenish-brown nastiness I was taking off was something I had seen before -- smoke residue. I imagined the machine set up in a room with a wood-burning stove, a man with a pipe, a 1970's two-pack-a-day chainsmoker-- over a century, I suppose it was possible that this sort of gunk could accumulate.

Then I looked at the condition of the cabinet, with it's water-damaged veneer, rippled and cracking, and I thought maybe there was a house fire. This machine could tell some stories, I bet! 

I stripped off the metal parts and scrubbed off the residue and rust as best I could. A little spritz of solvent degreaser on the works underneath and a wipe with a lint-free cloth got that cleaned up nicely. I oiled the parts and then added a dab of heavy duty silicone lubricant if things still seemed a bit tight. 

She won't win any beauty contests. There's decal damage from wear (and I admit there's a place or two where I scrubbed a little too aggressively) and there are places where rust has damaged the finish, but she's clean, and once I give her a coat of carnuba wax, she'll look okay. She shows her age and history, and there's nothing wrong with that; she's earned it!

This is me, trying all kinds of crazy stuff to clean various parts. If you look in the middle of the machine there, right under the decals, you can see a metal part that's kinda rounded. That's a little device that helps set the thread tension. It was all wiggly-jiggly and loose, so I took it off to see what the issue was. I couldn't see any way to tighten it, so I got my owner's manual out. No info there. So I checked out a treadle website I knew was reputable, and there I read the horrifying news: 'Don't disassemble the White tension system! This assembly rarely gives trouble and shouldn't be messed with. Reassembly and calibration requires a tool you don't have -- because you have to make it yourself.'

Good heavens! Had I just wrecked this machine? I got up and walked away from my work to take a few deep breaths.

Then I had a drink of water.

Then I went to bed.

By the next night, I had talked my courage back up. The part was obviously not working as intended even before I had taken it off. I had not broken the machine-- it had already been that way, and if I couldn't put it right, that was not my fault. But maybe I could fix it. I am nothing if not creative. Shoot, making a tool? That sounded right up my alley. I rolled up my sleeves and took off the face plate.

I had to really read carefully to decipher what the author was describing, but once I got a good look at it, I could see immediately what the problem was, and it was just a matter of using a screwdriver and a needle-nose pliers to tuck a piece into place. I got the face plate  back on and gave the handwheel a little turn. Nothing fell off, there were no screeching noises or clunks, and everything seemed to move as it should.

Whew!

It was time to put the machine back into the cabinet and she how she works. I cut a new belt from an old leather rein, made a few adjustments to get the length just right, and gave the handwheel a turn --

Okay, I'm trying to load a video from my phone. I hope this works....

If the technology worked, you should be seeing a video of that beat up machine running swift and smooth, making the tiniest, evenest stitches ever. I didn't even have to adjust the tension (something I spent two days messing with on my New Home machine, Julia, when I got her) and I'm beyond pleased with the results. Hooray for not breaking the tension system!

Now to get to work on refinishing the cabinet!