So. Sewing machines, huh? I don't think I've ever been to an estate sale that hasn't sold at least one of 'em. They're up there with alarm clocks and radios (and alarm clock radios) as one of the most ubiqitous pieces of machenery in the rural american home, and are as such pretty dang easy to acciddentally start collecting.
As of May 2023, i only have two of my own, but yard sale day is fast approaching... we'll see.
The first of my old machines, a 15-clone American Home DeLuxe, was actually a christmas gift. She rests in a "portable" case which I imagine would have been very pretty when it was new, and is from that weird era where sewing machine motors were just kind of stapled onto the side. I have no idea if the motor works, because i am afraid that if i plug it in it will immediately catch fire.
As for the rest of her, perfectly functional! I had to buy a new check spring- Tell you what, it's kind of difficult to repair machines when you have no idea what any of the peices are. took me at least two days to even figure out what was wrong- but aside from that, i've had no issues. Well, no issues that i can be sure are mechanical fault. The bobbin case has a bad habit of jumping out of place, but i can't be too sure that that isn't my fault.
Our next specimen is a weird one- though the branding all says "Graybar", I've been told that Graybar never made any sewing machines, and any by its name are actually the work of the National Sewing Machine Company. Though it makes a lot more sense in retrospect, researching this one was a wild ride. The site i was getting my threading instructions from was actually describing a different Graybar, which had a more familiar disc tension mechanism on the front instead of... whatever you would call this.
So yeah, i had to learn how to use the dang thing almost entirely through trial and error, and even though it works how i've got it set up now, I can't be too sure that how i'm doing it is even remotely correct. Yeah it works, but is it right? In any case, I feel like i actually prefer this one over the 15-clone. Bizarre history and lack of instruction aside, and forgiving that I have to wind the bobbin manually (I've been using a piece of s'ghetti string as an impropmtu belt, so it's not all that arduous, but it was a time and a half to figure out that i could just do that), It's pretty dang useable.