During some mending of some old jeans using my 1957 Singer 306K sewing machine, I encountered a jam of some sort and was forced to go digging to find the cause. I eventually found the offender (some balled up thread in the bobbin) but during the careful diagnosing and dismantling of the moving bits inside I found something interesting.
Now, if you needed a timed coupling between two shafts and Mr Gilmer hadn't invented his rubber toothed belts, how could you make a non slip connection between two pulleys? Here's Singer's solution.
How about a belt made of 11 wraps of heavy twine with carefully spaced bent steel wires clipped around it? (Simanco Part No. 189651). Singer was one of the first users of the rubber toothed belts developed in the early forties by Gilmer, but this old-school belt is going fine after more than 60 years.
Well, that's a perfectly working low tech almost makeshift solution. Probably hemp?
ReplyDeleteAnd it was built in Kilbowie, Scotland, year ...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/306
And cast aluminum instead of cast iron. Sure doesn't feel lighter. :-)
ReplyDeleteDamn that's cool!
ReplyDeletePfaff of course, had to do one better and use a double belt just in case:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.oldsewingear.com/uploads/1/0/0/3/10037813/pfaff-130-360-096_orig.jpg
Except that the Gilmer belt was invented in 1949. But I like the Singer belt better:)
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere, can't find it now (of course), It was invented in about 1940, got sidelined by the war and was developed and finally sold in 1949. I guess Singer had cold feet, this is a 1957 machine, still sporting the old belt. By the Pfaff image, that belt construction must have been in common use, wonder when it was invented!
ReplyDelete