A couple of weekends ago, I sold the machine Joy bought at the yard sale. She paid $40, I sold it for $100. I probably spent $10 on it so I made 50 bucks. $50 divided by 100 hours comes out to about .50 cents an hour, but it was fun saving it from the trash heap and putting it into the hands (and feet) of a lady who intends to sew with it.
I took half the profit and bought another old Singer off eBay. It would turn over when I got it, but it was stiff and sounded like fingernails on a chalk board. I completely disassembed it, soaked all the rusty parts in CLR for a while and scrubbed them with scotchbrite . . . not perfect, but they look 1000 times better. I washed all the painted pieces, then reassembled it, oiled it, threaded it up and sewed two layers of denium with it. This one only took a couple of hours from start to finish to restore to operational condition. It's a Model 20 Sewhandy toy machine, probably built in the 50s. This "TOY" is built better than most any small home appliance I've seen on the shelf at Wal-Mart in years.
Below are Before and After pictures.
