1951 New Home Rotary restoration

This weeks restoration project included another New Home Rotary, model NLB.

I was informed by the owner that this machine was bought "New", by his mother  in 1951.

Standard clean up of old, yellowed oil and dry caked grease brings these old machines back to near mint working order. In this case too, some re-wiring was needed. Usually the wire inside the machine is fine.

The power wire outside is what needs to be replaced.

Soldering the splice and then sealing with shrink tubing does a nice job that should last another 50 years.

As you can see, all steel gears above and below.

 Clean out that old grease and re-lube with a lithium based grease.

I use a cordless "Dremel" rotary tool with a small, carbon steel brush to polish up all the yellowed, metal parts.

The original friction pully is usually dry and brittle and usually has at least one dent in it where the rubber sat against the hand wheel for years. Once I got the motor re-wired, cleaned and lubed, I held a piece of 120grit sand paper against the "rotating" rubber to bring it back to almost new condition. It makes a mess but it works.

A couple hours, a little elbow grease and this baby is back in business.

Remember, these hand wheels run clockwise which is backwards to what we are used to.

After a short sew test with regular cotton fabric to set the tension,  I did end up re-setting the hook timing. Now I wanted to see what this machine could do. 6 Layers of denim wasn't a problem for this machine. (That was all that would fit under the foot) What a great old machine that should last another 60 years!

Sew test VIDEO: Watch