Meet the Remington

When you hear Remington, what do you usually think of? Chances are, like me, you think of typewriters or guns. Yesterday, we went to pick up my newest 'baby', - the Remington.

I found this beauty on Craigslist recently, and was finally able to work out an appointment to look at it. It looked nice in the pictures, but was a sorry looking specimen in person, and I was able to make an offer lower than their asking price, and brought it home for 10 bucks. I'd been doing some research on Remington sewing machines; needless to say, there's not much information out there to be found about them. The most I could find about them was that for a short time around the end of WWII, Remington made sewing machines. These machines were made in Japan as the black metal Singer look-alikes, and they seem to use all the same parts as their Singer counterparts. I've been comparing it with the similar Singer models, and so far, it seems most like the Singer 15-91. Needless to say, I've begun the project of restoring it, which I'll hopefully be able to document completely here.

It was filthy, and I began by removing every part that could come off. I do fully realize that it could backfire on me in the form of losing those tiny little screws, or by mixing up parts, but for now, I'm taking the chance. Here it is this morning with the side place, bobbin cover and face place, stitch lever plate, and stop motion knob and hand wheel removed.

This is what I found when I removed the feed dog plate.

And the back of the stitch lever plate - yes, those are dead fly bodies. Gentle readers, this is a machine that has not been run for 30 years, according to the lady I bought it from, and likely sitting in their garage that whole time too.

A view from the side with the stop motion knob and hand wheel removed. I also removed the bobbin winding mechanism (the contraption at the upper left), and the motor on the mounting bracket (more to come later on why I did that!)

The underside of the machine. You can see the dust there to the right, underneath the main shaft. Notice the power cords in the lower right of the picture. A former owner duct-taped them, and I'm not looking forward to seeing what's underneath.

The machine from the side, with the bobbin winding mechanism and the motor and mounting bracket removed. Doesn't it look cleaner already? I attacked it with wet paper towels, and its beautiful shiny black finish and gold trim are stunning!

That is as far as I've gotten on Master Remington so far. I've just had an influx of orders for this adorable Very Hungry Caterpillar set, and duty calls me to set him aside and crochet instead.

-If you'd like to see the pictures in higher resolution, you can click on them to see a larger, full resolution copy.