mechanical

mechanatrix pt.2

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I had been tinkering with my first sewing machine through the fall, all the while sourcing bits and pieces through ebay, and I had begun to wander the marketplace. Anything can be sent in a big enough package but sewing machines are some of the only industrial machinery sized just right to be sent through the mail in genuine parcels.

I came across good things about the Pfaff 130 on a few vintage sewing forums— I think I read that they were popular on working ships because of their small size and ability to sew through multiple layers of sailcloth… They’re usually brought up when someone wants to make jeans. I had also read that when they were first introduced they were sold on a kick treadle, so in theory one could be mounted in a table with an industrial motor.

There were a lot made, so they aren’t very rare or expensive. They were introduced in Germany in the 1930s, 25 years before being imported to America virtually unchanged and avoided my prejudice against modern consumptive rot. In a lot of ways the 130 is like a miniature of the truly industrial Pfaff 138 which is itself an interesting industrial hybrid; producing both straight and zig zag stitches in a so-called ‘artisan’ format.

I got a smaller 130-6 for a pretty good price at auction hoping to adapt it to a light-industrial/mini-artisan arrangement. It showed up right when I was in the middle of making some silly mistakes on the table that I had intended to have ready in time for its arrival. It was ready to use though, in a wooden tray with a small portable motor attached, stock as it would have been sold in the 50s.

In this ‘electrified’ state the controls are a little jumpy from the tiny low-torque motor pulley, but more noticeable is the artificial limit on its power. You feel the difference in a lot of different ways when the motor power is more proportionate to the abilities of the mechanism— that famed denim & sailcloth muscle. I replaced the plastic portable-style hand wheel with a heavier cast iron piece I sourced using the standard axle bore for this kind of machine. I also had to replace a few specific parts of the thread tension assembly that had rusted and were snagging.

With the larger motor & heavier inertia the needle just glides through everything effortlessly! The higher torque of the industrial motor actually makes it easier to go slow. All I could ask for is a walking-style foot (as on the 138) to help translate all that power into traction, as the mere ability to puncture many layers of canvas, denim, or sailcloth doesn’t necessarily translate to very graceful feeding of the material. There are times when you have to help the material along through a curve but the action of the machine never struggles. Its a steady machine nevertheless, capable of zig-zag & straight stitch (there’s also a sorta rare embroidery stitch module that attaches to the back of the machine).

I started humbly, with a single layer of canvas and some bias binding, practicing reinforcing the edges of the canvas that were prone to fraying. I picked up the technique quickly enough but learned that the actual shape of the cut piece is a consideration too. Certain angles left both the long and cross grain frayed and weak, meaning the stitches and binding kept pulling apart. I solved this by using thicker bias tape and stitching as close to the inside edge as possible— it worked, and I used that approach on the rest of the tool roll that I ended up making.

It turned out to be a really good little study of a lot of the different stitch conditions I would need to learn— lots of parallel lines with a variety of spacing, all the way down to double line topstitching, curves throughout and extensive practice with binding... Its a super messy piece but its still finished well enough that I’ve used it to store my wrench set for a couple months without so much as a loose thread.

The tool roll helped me get started on a more complex project, this sling bag design. I had some yellow and natural duck canvas from a long time ago when I had stretched some of it for paintings. Another quick voyage around the various thrift stores around here and I found some tan piping!

As simple as it may sound just making a basic tool roll, flaws and all, maybe helped me more than all of my meticulous study of the different methods. After handling and arranging the fabric and getting to know how seams can be used in different ways, I could just see the steps in my mind much more plainly when I approached the cut pieces of the pattern. Any amount of time you spend warming up on a machine & getting to know its quirks on a particular kind of material pays off immediately, as well.

I managed to get pretty clean seams throughout the sling bag, with a few sloppy (yet sound) portions on the interior bindings. Those parts were stitched through 5-6 layers, without too much trouble, but sometimes I had to advance the work piece myself... I could get a cleaner result on multiples, given more practice with each of the conditions.

I had to sew the topstitching connecting the front pocket a couple times, taking care to equally place each of the corners to be level and to avoid an overlap at the end. I was just practicing and didn’t take a lot of time sourcing notions but I do wish I had just gotten my zippers before starting! I began with the smaller pocket since I already had a 7” zip but I couldn’t find a match for it for the longer 14” when I got back to the store— not a major regret.

I use the bag a lot, the placement of the sling is really nice and I find myself reassured by the way it hugs my side :)

woodsmithing

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By the time it had gotten cold out, I knew my interest in sewing went beyond my little necchi. I still wasn’t sure exactly which heavier duty machine I was most interested in, but I was learning more about them. Industrial machines are actually just stitch and feed mechanisms, lacking a motor. These are called machine “heads”. They’re driven by a universal 3/8” belt that runs from the motor pulley to a channel on the heads’ hand wheel. Typically heads are only interchangeable on the same table if they use the same bed dimensions, like if they share a common predecessor. I wanted to make a plug-in style workstation that could run a couple different uniquely sized sub industrial machines I had been looking at.

Why ‘sub’ industrial? Well~ good question. the category doesn’t really exist, but to my mind it describes a type. There are exceptions but typically an industrial machine isn’t meant to be casually taken in and out. They’re pretty much built into their workstation on a permanent basis. There’s usually a good reason— the Adler upholstery machine I’ve eventually come to own weighs nearly 80 pounds! To plug that kind of machine in temporarily would require an overhead hoist— a nice daydream anyways.

Sub- industrials on the other hand, top out at… lets say 50 lbs I guess? (there is not a firm number). But in general they’re more a result of bygone regimes of mechanical quality, “overbuiltness” and other kinds of consumer materialism like home industry. For my purposes, they’re smaller than *the average* industrial and are light enough that they can be moved and stored in standardized crates without a lot of fuss or lifting equipment. They’re often antique. Sometimes they’re deeply industrial and simply very small, like the incredibly dense Merrow sergers. So this table was meant to be a hybrid strong enough to hold a true, small industrial, and also pruned back to leave space for larger, over-engineered domestics.

The inside edge of the opening on the tabletop has two ledges on its profile to support a tray insert. Pretty much anything that can be mounted within the perimeter of the tray can be aligned to the motor pulley below and then as a unit is easily taken in and out. The trays themself form a sandwich with an upper and lower box as a part of a crate scheme I also designed.

I ended up taking too much time working out different designs and didn’t pay close enough attention to the changing season. It was starting to get too cold to work effectively in the shop and I had finally won an ebay auction on a machine head. Spurred by panic and frustration thinking of a winter with nothing to do I simplified my better drafts into something very executable and I set about sourcing its deliberately simple materials.



I started with 2x4s that I joined together using laps. The part that the motor attaches to is not tied into the structure, but is more like a spacer (it was also friction fit in place). I could kind of tell just by looking at it that the table was too heavy, And not wanting to lose my progress to the colder and colder days, I made a rash decision to rout the bulk of the 2x4s on their hidden faces, making sure to leave a flange at the edge for stability. The cross members that attached to the steel base were also left intact.

In my routing zeal I made a template to recess the power switch to the motor— I felt way cooler than I was qualified for until I realized I had routed the wrong side of the table! Its ok, its ok! We designers know how to rationalize: now I have a reversible tabletop… only not quite. The biggest shame of it is that the deep route of this little ad hoc nightmare happened between my main supports, right where the dead load was most likely to bear down. I was getting worried about how it would work fully loaded, while being leaned on. Take my advice traveler: just craft a design and execute it, forget this nonsense.

Feeling sobered by the limitations of freehand woodworking, or eh “going off plan”, I tried to build the intricate trays with as much scientific accuracy as I could bring to the task. I used a 1 1/8” forstner bit to drill the recesses for the hinges. I made jigs using scrap masonite for pretty much every operation, used a fine mechanical pencil for marking, planned all my brad nails, even shaved a piece of cork to act as a shim under one of the hinges etc, etc. And the results show! I somehow lucked into a zero tolerance finish on a couple of the moments in the build.

On the second of the trays I had just as much luck in cutting and machining accurately but I failed to correctly measure the margin needed for the belt to pass by the machine base. It turned out to be really narrow! So I had to shift the recess I had routed to the right by about a quarter of an inch. That would have been enough but I had already drilled my hinge recesses according to my original layout! I filled and sanded the gap, and re-drilled but it really shows. For my purposes it got me sewing on the Pfaff during the cold months so I don’t really mind, but jeez…

 

Like a lot of the things I made over the past year, I have fonder feelings for the things I learned about myself and the extent and limit of my abilities than I do for my specific creation. Learning about how matters of construction inform matters of design, etc. Learning the specific behavior and limit of materials at different sizes, and how different tools interact with it. Looking back on the whole year its also cool to see my tolerances get smaller and my finish quality becoming more considered. Each project has been a step.

I think it showed me more exactly the way I would truly prefer a multi-machine worktable to be, and how I might actually make that. It definitely showed me how much I would value a logical and clear space for woodworking though, as I had begun to feel some dignity in my work. Even my not-so-crafty expirimentation had yielded at least one worthy result: I rounded the front corners of the table to keep fabric from snagging. I continued to work on a couple designs through the winter and to conceptualize what a portable woodworking kit would look like for my interests. Once I get a more carefully considered production space up and running I’m looking forward to building version 2!

 
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mechanatrix pt.1

 
 

At some point during my time gardening, I made a visit to the Reuse Center and spontaneously found this semi- functional vintage sewing machine. A Necchi Supernova (automatica) from about 1955. I didn’t really need any convincing, faced with the khaki, vespa styling of this machine. I made sure the chrome wheel operated smoothly and I hoisted the heavy tray onto my hip. I didn’t have any idea about sewing in my mind when I walked in, but I pretty much immediately grasped a sense of purpose in this beautiful durable machine. I have only ever been so gripped by the near agency of an object before in the form of a book— a particular sense that some possibility, or ability, or path is embedded in the specific tool, and a sudden onset of the feeling, as in a library or bookstore, or now reuse center, that I have to get this artifact home. It belongs in a museum!

Inspiration aside, when I got the machine home it did run but erratically, in a very sudden cycle. I could only get decent stitches in the straight stitch mode. I now know that this can be evidence of resistance in the machine which is only overcome at high motor speed, thus the 0-60 effect. To no surprise, it needed a cleaning and oiling. In the months since first learning to operate these mostly metal machines Ive gotten better at naming what charms me so in their oiling- they really are scale implementations of the same kind of mechanics of the age of steam! Lubrication is their original sin, part of virtually all machine operation…

Beneath the top panel I removed the automatic mechanism, which translates the regular radial motion of the drive axle into a ratchet-advancing drive for pattern cassettes. A system of 3 levers are pressed against the surface of an interchangeable star shaped disc (‘supernova’). The profile of each disk moves a lever, which carries that motion to the controls for the stitch length, width or advance/reverse speed controls, causing them to move “automatically”. The mechanism works vaguely like a music box cylinder, with one element “reading” the surface of a rotating disc. potentially Infinite embroidered stitches can be created by mixing and matching the discs.

With that assembly out of the way I could get some light solvents in and clear some sticky sections of the drive train. The next day I oiled and replaced all the parts and tried again…

With everything cleaned up and lubricated I was able to control the speed a lot more precisely, tested by making a pin cushion which has since (following careful de-pinning ) been given to our cats.

Something still wasn’t quite right though, and as I investigated I soon found the final source of the friction. The bobbin winder which is located on the inside of a flip-out door near the hand wheel was still engaged even when stowed away— it was acting as a little rubber brake! And when I took apart the assembly and tried to replace just the door, I found it needed the whole unit in order to stay closed at all. So i took it off altogether and suffered a gaping hole on the face of my machine while I took to a new hobby altogether: sourcing vintage stuff on ebay…

There, it’s common to find machines that have been disassembled, sold by the individual part. I found what I needed pretty quickly but my interest was piqued: a set of original attachments, including embroidery discs, and a pair of original owners manuals were soon mine.

Using the battered tray that my machine came with as reference, I designed an integrated storage container for the supernova, its attachments, and an array of sewing notions, though it was more of a modelling flex and not really something I knew how to build ... At some point I will probably build a system of crates sharing some standard dimensions for all my different machines.

I’ve had issues with the impulse rate of the embroidery mechanism, and haven’t gotten it to make reliable decorative stitches, but produces great straight and zigzag stitches. I made a small quilt with a lot of repetitive seams to get a feel for its quirks, how it likes its thread tension, how it feeds, etc.


My first impression of this machine was about what a communist feel it had to it— which in hindsight I think was just my modern puzzlement at a stylish piece of tech that is designed to be durable! It is so dissonant with the way technology is valued in our late capitalist sense of reality as to almost suggest a delirious political agency in simply its longevity. Add to that its drab chicness and khaki styling, and the fact that it is of the moment just after the second world war, before global trade had become the new world hegemony. I had a little hope that it could have been somehow influenced by world leftism, thinking of the history of cooperative manufacturing in the Mediterranean.

Unfortunately, I only credited this darling from the perspective of what our modern market for sewing machines, or technology more broadly, lacks. You just cant find many consumer oriented (and styled), full metal sewing machines anymore. The same goes for any appliance, really. Usually, as in refrigerators, and cars, there’s a very plain reason for the constant advancement, but this machine comes close to equal with its modern equivalents for features and could outlive their proper function by a power of ten.

Necchi itself began producing sewing machines in Italy based on patents owned by singer, the arch monopoly in sewing machine history. So, nothing so politically ground breaking or paradigm shifting in the roots of the organization. The Supernova was a hit at the time of its introduction because of its sleek design and its novel automatic embroidery stitch system but was also very heavily built, almost entirely of cast iron and machined alloys. Under the body lines the supernova is a lot like an improved machine of the 1920s.

There was a boom in patents for sewing machine improvements around the turn of the century, which coalesced around the time of their expiration into the modern integrated sewing machine capable of a variety stitches, many of which had been proprietary. Before, even the channel for thread tails on heavy duty needles was originally a feature unique to Pfaff needles! I’m left wondering if the supernovas unique combination of stylish and overbuilt is a result of desire and marketing having only just overtaken usefulness and longevity; whether its overbuilt qualities are vestigial and its styling natal. The Supernova’s successor, the Mirella, is featured in Moma’s permanent collection. Obviously 70 years later, consumer devices of all kinds are understood for their materiality in about as much of a way as we can understand the materiality of a jpeg; its pretty much image all the way down.

Whatever lingering hopes I had reserved for the political materiality, and the industrial-consumer end user of this machine were effectively over upon finding the original marketing materials. However as if to drive home my materialist confusion, the product delivered on even its most fantastic claim: my supernova has entered the 21st century!