Could it be this easy? Just add a knob to the hand wheel? I didn’t know, but the motor doesn’t work any more, so there was nothing to lose by trying. I drilled a hole in the hand wheel and attached a bit of dowel with a screw. Voila, a modern zigzag hand crank sewing machine, most useful for my small trailer where I don’t have room for a treadle base anyway.
(Even if I still had my treadle base, which I don’t.)
Turning the wheel around by hand is tiring, but easier than hand sewing, and slow, but faster than hand sewing.
It worked just dandy on my most recent trip to our cold new home, where at one point I needed to hem a piece of heavy canvas. Doing it with a machine surely did save my fingers.
“If it’s stupid but works, it isn’t stupid.”
Update 2025 –
Add a $12 flat flashlight, which charges by USB and lasts practically forever on low setting. Now I have a work light! The strap may be “stupid” but even hanging down like that, it isn’t in the way of my hands, and shines exactly where it needs to. So, it works 🙂
There’s a video of it in action. For some utterly unknown reason, I announce that it’s a 301A. It is not.
I see this post is old, but I’m so impressed I just had to say something! I absolutely love that you worked out such a simple solution to having machine sewing without electricity. It is so easy to forget in the modern world how very, very lucky we are. I sew a lot of Barbie things by hand because the tiny seams are so very irritating and it always makes me happy to go back to sewing at least American Girl clothes or human clothes because I can whiz it up by machine.
Just discovered your site and I’m having a little look around. I hope you’re having a wonderful life there!
Oh, and PS – thank you for the OSFA patterns! I am trying to cover a lot of territory for a small girl with a weird assortment of Barbie body types!
Oh you’re so welcome! Thanks for commenting!