I doubt that Isaac Merritt Singer, strolling player, theater manager, inventor, and self-made millionaire would recognise the sewing machines that today bear his name. In appearance they have been transformed from period pieces in cast iron to sleek plastic, but for the most part the ingenious mechanism remains the same.
As an engineer I have an affection for sewing machines. In my time I've repaired and sewn on various models - and cursed a few. I recently restored a hand operated Singer similar to the one in the opening picture. It dates from the early years of the last century. It entered my workshop as a wreck and left looking and working like new.
My favorite machine, and one that is in daily use, dates from sixty years ago. Although a little more modern in appearance its mechanism is still contained within a metal casting. It sews like a dream and never lets me down.
More recently I was tempted to buy the "modern" Singer pictured below. It certainly would not win a Design Center Award and it's reliability leaves a lot to be desired.
It's no better than a machine that I wasted money on fifty years ago. The manufacturer claimed it to be suitable for sewing sails. Thank goodness that I never had to resort to it in an emergency. Alice, my irreplaceable studio assistant in the BVI, did however manage to coax it into sewing new bunk cushions for my gaff cutter Born Free.
I do not have a picture of a machine I had use of in my early days in the Caribbean. It was a huge cast iron affair that had served its time in a Puerto Rico brassier factory. Its flywheel was turned by hand and the machine could have sewn zigzag stitches through a sheet of plywood. As a friend remarked: it says a lot for Puerto Rico women!
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