Assessment/thought process while acquiring my latest sewing machine

I wrote this post out on tumblr because I've been getting a lot of questions about machines and I thought it might perhaps be a bit helpful and/or interesting for some people, and then I figured I ought to post it here too.

This past Saturday a friend sends me these 2 pics from a yard sale and asks if I'm interested:

Intriguing! Grubby, but I don't see any missing pieces. Two access plates present and accounted for and no gaping holes, good, good. (I'd never heard of Western Electric and I do some quick googling at this point, but it doesn't really affect my choice here.)

It's grainy but I can see the bobbin winder complete with a cam and a little arm that guides thread back and fourth. Behind that the stitch length regulator knob is just visible.

The foot and needle clamp and both sliding plates are there, and the tension assembly looks alright, I can see the little knob at the end of it.

Clearly a vibrating shuttle machine from the orientation of the plates, so hopefully it has bobbins, because those could be hard to find.

Asked friend how much it is and he said $25. (CAD) An agreeable price for a sad old machine!
Hmm, I think. Maybe I can find a hand crank for it, but even if the machine is a total loss, the case would be well worth the price. It's got an intact bentwood lid! None of my current machines have one of those.

The bottom part looks scuffed up, but not warped or falling apart or mouldy as far as I can see in the pictures.

I figure that in the worst case scenario (or. worst machine scenario?) I could remove this machine and somehow alter the hole size to fit one of my two currently case-less machines.

If, at this point, I had wanted to be more sure of the machine itself before buying it I would have asked the friend to:

1. Turn the hand wheel to see if it moves. If it turns, even stiffly, that's good. If it's frozen completely solid then that's pretty bad. (Not necessarily impossible to save, but I've never encountered a seized machine before and I don't know if I'd be able to fix it with my limited tools.)
2. Check to see if there's a shuttle in there, and at least one bobbin. Can't sew at all without those. I probably would have described them as "a little bullet shaped thingy and a little dumbell thingy" and told him to look in the storage compartment on the right side of the case, and under the front sliding plate.

But, having determined the case at the very least was worth having, I say yes. Friend buys it and drives it over and I e-transfer him the $25.
Now I can look at the machine in person! Whee!

Case lid latches securely to the base, good! The handle is rusty but it's screwed on, not riveted, so I'll be able to remove it and take all that rust off.

Yep, still looks like no missing parts. Except for the cord and foot pedal, but I wasn't going to even attempt to use the 100+ year old motor anyways.

(The cover of the storage compartment is missing its knob, but that's easy to fix, and not something that needs to be specific like the actual machine parts.)

The wheel turns fairly smoothly and things appear to be moving as they should. There's dirt and oily gunk, but I can clean that. There are patches of rust here and there, but nothing too huge, and I can sand and polish it off.

I look under the front plate and hooray, there's the shuttle and it's got a bobbin in it!

I slide back the lid of the storage compartment and there's another bobbin, and 3 feet and a quilting guide and a seam guide! (And 4 flaky lead weights that have no business being here, ick.)

No sign of any needles though, which is a bit of a bummer, but there is the rusty stump of a broken one still in the needle clamp.

At this point I've read a bit more on the internet, and I see posts saying that Western Electric made the motors and sold machines branded with their name, but the machines themselves were made by the National Sewing Machine Company. Good to know! I look at some pictures of National sewing machines and some of them are almost the exact same design as this one. Apparently mine's from the 10's or 20's, which seems right judging from the overall style.

They seem to be not super common and also not particularly valuable, but I really don't care as long as it sews.

I look around for National Sewing Machine Company hand cranks and find only one, which is on ebay.

Same manufacturer and same time period, and it's a bit hard to tell from the angle but the mounting part looks like the same size and shape as the flat part on my machine...

But I should find out if anything's wrong with the workings of the machine before I consider buying a rare and expensive hand crank. Normally I just start the disassembly and cleaning before bothering to find out, but in this case I'd better test it right now.

I drop a little oil here and there, but I don't bother to do all the necessary points because it'll all be cleaned anyways and I just need to see if it makes a stitch. I take the rusty needle stump out and it's got the same kind of shank as a standard needle! I try a standard needle and it's too short to catch the tip of a shuttle (very easy to see it doing this if you move the hand wheel without the plate or fabric in the way) but I move it a few mm lower in the clamp and it stitches fine! The upper tension needed to be tightened a lot but that was all.

Someone in a forum post I saw did mention that these machines used a needle that's similar to a standard needle but a bit longer. When I clean & reassemble it I can either move the needle bar a bit lower, or glue a little nub of something in there to stop the needle from going all the way up. I'll probably do the former.

I used the old thread already on the bobbin, so I still haven't tested the bobbin winder, but it spins and looks totally fine. I'll have to replace the crusty old tire and then it should work.
Working machine with 2 bobbins, I will not be wasting my money if I buy a hand crank that fits it.

I want to be more certain that the crank will fit, so I message the seller and ask how far apart the 2 holes are, and how big the flat part is.

I also find this image from a National Sewing Machine advertisement. Oohooo!

Aside from the extra spool pin that looks just like my machine, and the hand crank has the same shape and decals as the ebay one!

The ebay seller messages back with the measurement between the middle of the 2 holes, and the width of the flat part, and it's the same measurements as mine! I also have a closer squint at the pictures and it looks like the spinning part that attaches to the wheel is to one side and the mounting part is to the other side, and the corresponding places on my machine are in the same orientation. I also find a slit in the hand wheel that looks just the right with for that little metal tab with the hole in it.
I am now 99% sure the crank will fit, so I order it. Thankfully it's in BC, so there's no international shipping. The crank itself was $85, but all things considered I think it's a fair price for a rare highly specific over 100 year old piece of equipment that's already clean and oiled. (As of the time I'm writing this it's only just shipped and should be here in a couple of weeks.)

I take the machine out of the case and look at the bottom, and there's a very dead sheet of thin plywood. Moisture has happened to it.

I have a scrap of thin plywood that's just a bit bigger than this, and the rest of the case is not too bad. Some cracks in the bottom to glue, and some chips of missing veneer, but this is fixable.

A good purchase! Things are going exceedingly well!! I've never used a hand crank but I've wanted one for a while, ever since I realized how precise they'd be for free motion embroidery.

I have just started on refurbishing the case, but I'll do another blog post about that when it's done, this one was just about the figuring stuff out & buying stage.