.......more sewing machines

Seems like I spent a large chunk of yesterday fiddling with sewing machines. Gave a couple of them a thorough grease and oil change and set up the 2 Singer industrials specifically for machine quilting. The 12" throat straight sewer I set up for free-hand quilting - removed the feed dog and made a new cover plate with a single small hole for the needle. Industrials may not have a lot of the fancy bells and whistles but they are infinitely adjustable and totally unkillable. The 2 Singers normally take long shank feet but I can loosen a screw and drop the whole shaft down to take short shank or even up to take the longer pfaff feet. Also I can get the MR (multi-range) needles for them. These are the needles that the long arm quilting machines take. They are designed to avoid skipped stitches when stitching in any direction. (Normal needles are really only designed for stitching forward)
This machine actually cost me nothing. We were having the bi-annual neighbourhood hard rubbish collection and I was driving home this particular day just as a lady was dragging it out onto the foot path. Slammed on the brakes and backed up. 'You throwing it out? Can I have it?' 'Doesn't work' she said 'Don't care' I think to myself 'It can be fixed'. As it turned out it was only a short in the motor where some of the insulation had broken away. It ended up costing me $17 for a new pulley and belt to gear it down because it just went too fast even for me.
The other Singer machine (a 20u) does a 9mm wide zig-zag which is unusual for an industrial. I've set this up for machine quilting with the foot on. Adjusted the foot height and pressure so that I don't need a walking foot and tweeked a few other things. So now I all I need to do is quilt something on them. This one still has a bit to do in the border.