Montgomery Ward VCR

Singer Quantum sewing machine

This specimen is as good an example as any of the crapshoot nature of sewing machines. On the one hand, it's relatively new, so there might now be so many mechanical bits to salvage, but on the other hand, a lot of whatever parts that are inside are plastic and thus less of a pain on average to remove. So, going into this, I didn't have too many expectations one way or the other.


Like I said, it's a fairly new sewing machine, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was still available at retailers. It also appears to be a low-end model, to make an uninformed snap judgment, and was thus probably cheaper to replace than to fix.

One other thing of note is the design of the little slider things on the setting levers. As far as I can remember, I don't have anything else of a similar shape in my parts collection. And knowing how I think, they'll likely sit unused for a very long time for fear of messing up the only ones of those I have.


Yet another free spool of thread. And this time it's actually in a color I can possible use, you know, if I ever figure out how to sew.


I kept the whole thing. One day, I'll probably get tired of oddly shaped plastic boxes, but that day hasn't come yet.


Fairly clean interior for a new sewing machine.


Note the exposed ends of those wires. They were originally hooked into a connector. I always try to pull those kind of circuit board connectors that plug into the little pins, but they rarely come off cleanly. This sewing machine, however managed to yield several of them with little effort.


Not an impressive haul in number of parts, but some of what I got are somewhat unusual.

Smith-Corona manual typewriter

I'm surprised at how many typewriters I've found in the small swath of town that I patrol since I moved here. This is the third in a couple of years, and there was one other one I wasn't able to get. All the others were electrics, so I was even more surprised to see a manual.



This is very close to a typewriter I had (or had access to) as a kid. Had I thought I had a shot at cleaning it up, I would have tried, even just for the purpose of selling it off or giving it away. But this was so rusted up that it was likely beyond repair.



Since it was so rusted up, getting parts off was a pain, when they would come off at all. For instance, the first few rows of keys came off readily, but that bottom row just would not come off.



The bottom--less clean than it looks.



Taking this apart, or rather taking parts off of it, was essentially an hour or so of trying different screws, turning the typewriter around, and attacking it from a different angle. I finally quit around the point pictured.



I pulled more parts than this, but other than the buttons, I really didn't bother to save that many of them.

New Home Memory Craft 5000

If it wasn't for the fact that I probably had nothing better to do the night I picked this machine up, it really wouldn't have been worth it. I mean, look at it.


For the longest time, I thought this picture was leftover from a set that I didn't completely transfer to another folder. It was only today that I remembered that this was, in fact, the way I found it. I guess there were a lot of salvageable parts on it.



Fortunately, they left the label with the manufacturer and model number on it, which I assume translates to Memory Craft 5000. Otherwise, I'd have had to just label this one 'manufacturer unknown.' Incidentally, I've now taken apart 5000, 6000, 7000, and 8000 series Memory Craft sewing machines.



Not much in the way of parts. You can understand why I didn't bother to take pictures of any disassembly.