The Machine!

15-91

This is my 1950's era Singer model 15-91. You might be able to to see why I wanted to understand it more after looking at it. It's sweet! It looks like an old steam engine. It's full-on heavy black metal with little gold Steampunk trim. Its motor-driven, not belt driven, so it has an impressive amount of punch. I have no doubt it could plow through several layers of leather.  I spent a few hours just cleaning it and oiling it before I even started to figure out how it worked.

The big thing to know when getting started on one of these beasties is that you need to oil them. This particular machine has about 20 little "oil holes" in various locations, easiest to find by following the manual (see link below article). I read someplace that you should really get the proper oil for these, so I purchased Tri-Flow Sewing Machine Oil from http://shop.SEW-CLASSIC.COM. I reccommend them if you have an old machine like mine. They have a lot of gear for older machines and I was even able to find a few tiny missing parts (such as a thumb screw).

When I first started farting around with it I had a problem with the thread breaking on me. It wouldn't sew more than a few stitches before breaking. After much trial and error I figured out a few things that everyone should learn.

Size 18 needle

1) (Needle) Size Matters!

The needles that I had in a pile of notions and stuff that were associated with this hand-me-down were about as old as the machine itself and of various sizes that I could not identify. It's best to just go out and get some new ones, if not for anything just to get the right size for the job. I was testing my abilities on some denim that I found and turns out that denim needs a fat needle, or size 18, to really punch thru the fabric and get the thread through without breaking. For delicate material, its better to go with a thin needle as not to destroy the fabric with the needle itself.

2) Tension

There is a little knob on the machine that is used the adjust tension on the thread feeding in. To be honest, I really haven't figured this out all the way yet. All I know at the moment is that by either loosening or tightening the thread you can get it to work better. In my trials so far, looser is better than tighter, but I have no idea why yet. If anyone would like to comment on the mastery of thread tension, by all means jump in. I did read the part in the manual where it talks about adjusting it for either top or bottom stitch consistency, but that wasn't too clear to me either. I suggest playing with the tension setting and test on some scraps before you do any actual sewing.

3) Stitches Per Inch
There is a lever right below the spool on the facing side that can adjust how many stitches you want to create. It basically feeds the fabric in at a faster or slower rate as far as I can tell. The faster the fabric comes in, the less stitches per inch. If you set this too high on tough fabric it seems to kind of freak out and creates a bunch of Charlie Brown style knots or just breaks the thread. I have been keeping it in the 15-ish range and that seems to keep it happy. At 15 the stitches look pretty nice and are pretty sturdy.

I don't want to go into detail about bobbin and thread loading it as it seems pretty specific to each machine. I actually figured out how to do it by searching for 15-91 on YouTube and someone else had a nice demo of a machine they were selling. There are a ton of great sewing videos up there as well, so don't hesitate to check it out for a few beginner tips. If you have a question about loading the bobbin or thread on the 15-91, let me know and I will try to help you out.

4) Thread!

The thread I had in the bag 'o junk was really old. So old that you could easily break it by pulling it apart with your hands. Not a great choice for making anything. I bought some nice polyester thread and the breaking really minimized. You should really buy the right thread for the job. It may not always be poly, but I can at least recommend that you buy a spool made within the last 40 years!

Well that's it for now. I have already started working on a few projects. I will be posting the results of how they turn out in the next few days. Thanks for reading!

 

Here is a link I found to this machine's manual:
LINK TO FREE 15-91 MANUAL(download in PDF form)

About Textile Hacker...

Textile Hacker was created to record my journey learning how to sew. Why sewing? I am self-professed geek who loves learning how things work and acquiring cool new skillz (yes, that's skillz with a Z). My wife has this old beast of a machine from the 50's that has been gathering dust in a corner. I have had my eye on for years now and I figured I would finally give it a shot. Plus, my wife is really happy about the whole "free tailoring" part of this endeavor and that can't hurt.

I came up with the name "Textile Hacking", as alternative to "sewing" (yawn) in an effort to generate some male geek culture interest into the old skool world of sewing. I wasn't too lucky finding other sewing blogs that appealed to my personal tastes or style, so I figured there must be a hole and I was just the needle-wielding dork to fill it. Plus it just sounds cool.

This is not an instructional sewing blog. You probably need to visit much pinker sites with more ads for that. I barely know what I am doing here- a complete sewing n00b. But hopefully I will learn a few tricks along the way to pass along. I am also hoping to connect to other dorks like me who are willing to shatter the gender stereotypes, embrace their inner seamster and share their crazy thimble stories. I mean, somebody had to make all those Darth Vader capes at Comic Con, right?

If you have any questions about anything I post, by all means, comment away and I will answer all that I can. Remember: we are in this together!

Happy Sewing!
-The Textile Hacker