Meet the Singer 28K. This old girl is from 1894. The ISMACS Singer Serial Number database doesn't provide model numbers for machines with serial numbers that don't have letter prefixes, but this machine certainly looks like a 28K.
Given the holes in the wood base the machine is attached to, it was originally installed in a treadle table. When I received it, it didn't have a hand crank attached so I purchased a Chinese knockoff on Amazon. It fits and works fine, so that will have to do for now. Perhaps in the future I will consider searching for a vintage hand crank to replace the modern one, but it may or may not be worth the money or the effort to obtain one.
Let's take a look at this piece of history!
The needle plate says "PATENTED 1886". The paint is in rough shape in places, but it still creates nice stitches.
Vibrating shuttle style bobbin case. The ejector button for the shuttle was a later invention. To remove the shuttle, you had to carefully push the tip down until the back lifted enough to grab it and pull it out. It sometimes can take a few tries to get the shuttle in the right position to remove it.
The bobbin shuttle and bobbin. If you have never threaded one of these bobbins, it's quite the adventure to figure out the magic trick of weaving the thread through the metal bars and channels to get it properly loaded. The machine won't sew if the thread isn't loaded properly in the shuttle.
The modern Chinese hand crank. I think the machine is embarrassed by it, but I'd rather have a hand crank for it than not so I grabbed the modern knockoff. It works fine. Probably won't last as long as the machine, but at least it allows me to sew with this machine.
Side view. You can see the two holes in the base that were originally used for treadle. I'm not sure when this was removed from the table, but glad it was because finding room for more hand crank machines is easy, but squeezing in another treadle in a huge cabinet requires serious furniture tetrising.
Back of the machine. The decals are less worn out on this side. Notice that the access plate for the vertical tower blends in to the rest of the machine - if you look carefully, you can see the seam where the plate is.
Above, I have removed the aforementioned plate to expose the innards that need to be oiled regularly. I like that they concealed the opening so well. The piece fits tightly so it's hard to notice unless you know it's there.
Left side of machine. Very plain but shiny side. Singer didn't start decorating the side plates until later.
Birds' eye view of machine. The Singer logo is nearly worn off but can still be read. The decals over by the wheel look pretty good. The wheel isn't as shiny as I'd like, but it works.
Close up of the bobbin winder. I love the pair of cams that control the arm that winds the thread on the bobbin. It took some clever mathematics to determine the shape and gear ratio to get this to wind those long bobbins consistently.
Decals very worn, but still visible enough to see that they had been beautiful earlier. Not too shabby for a 127 year old machine. It also has two spool pins.
Front view of the machine. The little shovel shape on the left above the needle and tension dial is another access port for oiling.
This machine lives in this lovely bentwood case. I just polished it with furniture polish before taking the photo so that it would be shiny and prettier looking.
Inside the case we have a little cubby that would hold the box of attachments and manual. Sadly, this one was empty. But I do have several sets of attachments from various machines, so in theory, I could gather together a set of attachments for this machine and put them in this space. I like to leave the extra attachments out so I can use them on the machine I'm sewing with rather than having to hunt down which case contains which attachments.
The attachments and things box closed and latched.
Hope you enjoyed meeting this 127 year old Singer 28K!
HAPPY SEWING.
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