Singer 306K C1961
Hello Dear Friends and Readers,
I just can’t tell you how delighted I was when two of my children texted me to say that my daughter had found a sewing machine on the side of the road when she had gone to visit number one son!
They had reverted to their childhood in a way and we’re busy “playing” with it. Cheap entertainment!!! It still had a box of attachments too.
On initial inspection the machine looked to be in quite nice condition. The duco was still shiny and undamaged.
Time has passed now, and my son has said he wants to move it, so we are spending the day looking into the machine.
The Singer 306K is one of 50000 machines made on the 6th of February 1961 (Courtesy ISMACS)
As you can see, the number is under the machine rather than on the right front as with many of the older Singers.
It is an early Zig Zag machine.
In the case of this machine, the belt was missing. My son ordered a new belt and fitted it. He also fixed the foot pedal as it was jammed in the on position.
As it turned out, this machine had quite a few problems.
Next I gave it a thorough oiling. Now it was time to see if it would sew. Well… wouldn’t you know it, it wanted to sew backwards. It would barely go forwards at all. There seemed to be only reverse. It all appeared rather perplexing. We went over everything. Eventually my son said it seemed to be related to the stitch length lever.
He very carefully loosened the screws that held it in place. He removed the lever and blow me down it was quite bent. I would not have picked that! That was not evident from the outside. I guess someone had become rather frustrated with this machine. That could have been why it was on the street!! Either that, or it had had some sort of accident.
How it became bent is anyone’s guess. I had begun to think it was unsalvagable. The lever is a heavy steel pin. My son managed to straighten it. We put it back into the 306K machine and now came the test? Could it sew?
Unfortunately, the problems were not all solved.
Accessing the bobbin is achieved by tilting th machine up. A bit like lifting the bonnet on a car. There is a latch to hold it in place.
The bobbin could not be removed from the bobbin case. Now this was frustrating. I suspected that maybe it had been damaged by the needle. Sure enough, on closer inspection, I could see a slight divet in the bobbin case which looked to be from a needle being forced into the wrong place. I gather that this may have resulted from using the wrong needle for this machine. Check out this site for further information.
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/306/
Now with some brut leverage, the bobbin was expelled from the case. The bobbin reminded me of the one from my Singer 31K20,
Singer 31K20 Treadle & Free Motion Quilting
which is a bigger bobbin and very useful for free motion quilting as it takes a lot of thread. We used some fine sandpaper to rub off the offending burr on the inside of the bobbin case. Now the bobbin went in and out effortlessly as it should do.
I filled the bobbin with fresh cotton, and threaded the machine.
After some adjustments to the tension assembly with the help of Ray Elkins from the Sew Purty Workshops…..we were on the way! Thanks Ray!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=532Lu1MFtio
Just beautiful! Stitching like a dream! I think it was worth the trouble.
I got straight into some small sewing projects.😊
A dust cover for headphones.
and a Little Flower Bag Little Flower Bag and Tutorial
It would appear that there are some negative reviews on line about this machine, but after some TLC she is sewing very well! A rather fine looking machine, don’t you think?
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Or, Vintage Singer 201K and FMQ
Happy sewing!
Susie