Anything about sewing machines and the tools we use.
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By Tourmax
#11021
I mostly work on textiles, webbing, vinyl and light leather. Nothing professional, all for my own stuff. Primarily, I work in vinyl and leather for my motorcycle and car projects (ie: motorcycle seats, etc) and textiles are usually things like covers, tops, etc for Off road toys. I don't do anything like belts, harnesses, chaps or the like. It's all "lighter" stuff. I also usually end up doing clothing repairs and the like for my missus (she can't sew a stitch). It's all personal stuff, and maybe the occasional small things for friends and family. I've always used domestic machines, but the older ones. Things like a Singer 319W, White's, etc. Mostly 50'-60's machines. I just like the industrial look and the feel of an all metal machine.

But they have their obvious limitations. I usually do the waxed paper trick if I have to pass leather or vinyl under the flat presser feet of these machines, but that's never ideal and you end up with lots of little pieces of waxed paper stuck in your material/stitches. I never really wanted to invest more into them than getting them looking decent and working right, so no roller feet, etc.

I've been vetching for years for a walking foot machine, but they're nearly impossible to find here, I've seen a total of two up for sale in the last two years. One was a Pfaff, but the seller never responded to my inquiries and the other was a knock off of what looked like the smallest of the Sailright's (like a domestic sized machine) that they wanted waaaaay too much for (could have almost bought a new one). I've been watching ebay/online forever, but you're talking in the $2000-3000 (Canadian) range to get anything worth buying, ship it, duties, taxes, etc. I could pay that (and it would hurt a fair bit), but I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of money on something I might use a couple times a year (when not doing a larger project of some sort).

A couple days ago, a Singer 331k105 showed up on facebook marketplace and it was only 10 mins away. Here's the add pic:

Image

It's all there, it's just a little....ahem.....neglected.

It's not really a "commercial" model, nor is it a "domestic" model. It seems kind of halfway between both worlds. I guess that's why they put "professional" on it: more than domestic, less than commercial, so it needed it's own category....lol! I actually kind of like it that way, as I can still do domestic tasks on it yet have enough "punch" for entry level/light leather work.

Straight stitch, no reverse. Not that big of a deal.

Has a manual with it, but I don't think it's the original one. There was actually a bill of sale/warranty card in the drawer and it said it was sold in 1966 in Baden-Baden, Germany. That it originated in Germany isn't that big a surprise, there's a major airbase just up the road a ways (I'm retired Mil Aircrew) and when we pulled out of Germany in the 80's lots of German items came back with our troops as household belongings. The manual is for all 331k's, with a publication date of 1975. There was a parts list too, but it's for a 331k5. Still, lots of good info there and the original owner card was kind of neat to see (I was born in 65, which may very well be the birth year of this old rig).

The lady that had it said she had it "tuned up" last year, but it was now out of timing. In a nutshell, the hook doesn't seem to be picking up the thread. She says she was sewing, broke a needle on some fabric and it's been out of time since. Probably shifted the needle bar too high. That doesn't worry me, I plan to pull it apart to the nuts and bolt and restore it. She took a hundred off her asking becuase that's what she had to pay to get it timed. 300 bucks all in.

Information on it is pretty sparse on the web, I'm guessing because it's not as common as a domestic (or more mainstream) machine. I'm aware that it is intended as a tailor/seamstress machine. It's got a walking foot, but it's not the compound feed. It's the hopping/vibrating/kick/hobble foot. Basically, the dogs pull back the outer foot when they go and then it springs back when the feed dogs drop. So it's got it's limitations, but it will do what I need it to do: light leather and vinyl work. Certainly better than a fixed presser foot.

Parts are a little hard to come by it seems. At least for a 105 model. It appears (from what I have read) it's basically a 31 series refresh in a "new" body. The kick foot 31's seem to be serials like 31-47.

When I got it home, I started pulling it down. They were smokers and man it shows. Took about an hour with cleaners and a toothbrush just to get most of the baked on tar loose. And that was just the exterior. I ran a little Neverdull over the brass bits and they start to clean up nicely. that's a good sign for later when I actually clean/polish/buff them back to new. The body is decent, but I'm probably going to have to strip it down to bare metal to deal with some light rusting and what not. Probably go back to the same "robin's egg blue" color. The names (Ie:Singer,Professional, etc) I'll photograph and have replicated in vinyl stick on lettering. Would be nice to save the original painted letters, but if I strip it down that's not an option. I plan on dropping all the bits and whatnot into the ultrasonic, which will take care of the 50+ years of crud baked into this thing everywhere.

First was a quick overview/check. Well, it's not feeding material. A quick look reveals the feed dogs are loose. Tighten that up and it now wants to just spin the material under the foot. I also notice that the "walking foot" doesn't "walk" all the way back to the point where the dogs drop. A little cleaning, positioning and work on presser settings gets it moving. A bit more adjusting and it "mostly" feeds now, it just has a slight tendency to pull the fabric to the right.

I pull the foot off and flip it over. Ah, there it is: it's a piping foot and a large one at that. There's almost nothing contacting the dogs. No flat presser in the box of bits, so I order one up. Sheesh, there goes 80 bucks! (exchange, shipping, etc) But I have no choice, I can only find it one place online. Well, 2 places, but one of those is ebay and it's the guy who is selling them on his own website.

Stitch length is a little short for leather work. It is only spec'd for 4.5 mm. Well, I'd like a longer stitch length than that, so i start digging around. I discover that if I remove the nice decorative plate around the stitch length lever, the lever drops down further. I try out a stitch on some paper and it measures out to 6 mm. Not bad, not bad at all, considering it started closer to 4 mm. I then notice that the lever has a nice little pointer on it, but that also hold the lever up off the bottom of the slot. I pop that off and gain another .5 mm for a total of 6.5 mm. I may try a little filing on the case to see if I can gain another .5 mm without messing up the machine. 7 mm would be a decent length for exposed stitches on leather. The kick foot was still in contact with the dogs at 6.5 mm with lots of reward movement still available (and the needle and center presser firmly in contact with the material) so squeaking out another .5 mm without puckering the material should be possible.

Thread sizes? Well, that will have be a little trial and error. But I've read a few (very few) posts that indicate it will run 92 fine and one that indicated 138 runs fine.

It's got a clutch motor, which (as an amateur) is obviously not ideal for me. It runs like a tailoring machine right now, meaning it's g-d frighteningly fast as soon as you even graze the pedal! I play around with it for a while (longer arm, pulleys, etc) since I already have it and it costs me nothing to mess with it. But I just can't reliably get it where I like it. I can sort of run it slow with some careful foot work. But the pedal is so sensitive and finicky, I never know what RPM it's going to start at or when a little too much pressure will make it zip up to warp speed 9! If I were to use it every day for hours at a time, I might be able to better control it, but that's not how it's going to go. So I throw up my hands and order a servo motor. The clutch motor will do for now, as I'm just going to be tearing it apart and need the motor to confirm function when I get it back together. It should be a fun learning experience messing around with the clutch motor, even if it eventually ends up on a shelf somewhere.....

I'll have to see how that "hopping foot" deals with some leather/vinyl. If it's not working out, I may switch to a roller foot and see how that goes. I'm sure I'll find no end of modifications and substitutions that will fit the ol' girl.

Should be a fun little project and hopefully, it will fit my needs.


Any info, suggestions or links to info/manuals on the 331k105 appreciated!

Oh yeah; first post, so......Hello!

:)
John liked this
User avatar
By sandmanred
#11042
Cool. Good luck as you get the machine fired up.

I've got a clutch motor on one of my machines. I added a pulley that fits basically on top of the driven pulley that slows it down a lot. Also playing with the linkage between the pedal and the clutch can help, making the lever arm shorter on the pedal or longer on the clutch end reduces the travel at the clutch and can help get a little more control when you are feathering the engagement.

Image
By Tourmax
#11450
So it's been a while since updating. Life gets in the way sometimes.

But I've slowly been getting the ol' 331k105 ready to stitch. It hasn't been an easy road, lots of PO sins perpetrated on this 60-ish year old machine.

The lady I bought it from said she had recently had it serviced. Well, she had an official looking receipt, but whoever was working on it couldn't have known a sewing machine from his sisters T's.

It took me forever to get the machine timed correctly. It was breaking threads, snapping needles, not making the lock stitch most times and just generally making a mess of everything. Basically, doing everything except sewing....

I ordered a new "walking foot", but the "new" one wasn't machined correctly. So I had to re-machine that part (good thing I have a lathe and knee mill).

A new needle plate and dogs were slotted in, mostly because the originals were rusty and beat to crap.

Pulling out the bobbin case revealed the tension screw was so loose it was about to fall out. In the process of adjusting that to try and get thread tension right, the little door came off and the tiny spring made it's bid for freedom. So, ordered another couple bobbin cases.

The thread guides were gone off the top of the machine, so I ordered up a set of Juki ones. I wanted the Juki ones because they had he thread holes needed but they also had small tension discs, in case you want/need more thread tension. When they got here, the diameter was too large to fit into the Singer, So off to the lathe and a few minutes later they slot right in to the Singer holes.

The original clutch motor is waaaaay too fast for leather, so in went a servo motor. Took a little messing around, but works great now.

A bit of work with a grinding stone made it capable of a full 8 mm stitch, which is pretty much the practical limit of the mechanism. Basically, all I did was grind the slot longer, eventually breaking into the lower screw hole for the indicator plate (now removed).

7.5 mm is more likely the "workable" stitch length, as you need to put the stitch length adjuster so low to get 8 mm that the lock nut doesn't really "lock". What happens is the angle is so extreme that the nut doesn't lay flat on the body, so only one side of the finger nut contacts. This means that no matter how much you tighten it, it will eventually work loose and then the stitch adjuster just pops up and down as you stitch. 7.5 mm is plenty for what I'm working with, although if I want 8 mm I can just make up a spacer to fit in the stitch length hole. The feed dogs are also at the limit of their travel in the needle plate at 8 mm, so that's the absolute longest stitch length the machine is capable of. Unless you want to rework the feed dogs or needle plate (but I don't recommend it).

Lighting. Well, it sucks. That one incandescent bulb just wasn't cutting it. In went a light strip under the arm/arch and a magnetic stick on light lights up the outside of the needle (or anywhere I want to point it).

Table was too long to fit in the space I had, so ten inches were lopped off. No worries for larger material, because the machine is right next to (and the same height) as a 6 foot long credenza.

The top tensioner was original, so I ordered up a spare. Yeah, I got bit by sloppy Chinese manufacturing again. It fit fine but just wouldn't adjust properly. Comparing old to new, the new spring was weaker, the new take up spring was weaker and it was just cheaply built all around. So I pulled the discs off the new tensioner and rebuild my old one. Worked fine afterwards.

Then, trying to wind a new bobbin (different color than top thread), it kept flipping off the tension disc and otherwise tangling/catching/snapping. Chinese manufacturing "tolerances" again. So I pulled the assembly off, ripped it apart and used the bits to rebuild to original bobbin winder. Worked fine afterwards.

After that, it was just a matter of cleaning, lubricating and round after round of adjustments.

Now, it stitches wonderfully. I can put 4 layers of heavy denim and it thumps right through it like it's not there. Same with two layers of upholstery leather, goes through like it's not even there. Stitches are great, no pulling/creeping of the leather layers at all. I suspect it will sew thicker, I just haven't tried yet.

I also purchased a spare hook and race, a set of roller wheels, extra bobbins and a number of other small parts I could find for it. I think I'll start looking for used singer originals though, given how much trouble the "new" Chinese manufactured parts gave me.

As it sits today:

Image

Overall, very happy with the machine, even though it's cost a few bucks and a few headaches to get here.

:)
John liked this
By TaraH
#12195
A friend of mine recently gifted this same machine to me. She said that it was sewing beautifully but it has now been sitting a couple years, unused.

It sounds as if you have had quite the adventure in getting your machine going.

I am looking for the manual for it and your post is the only one google can find for a Singer 331K105.

The machine came without a bobbin, other 331K models are using a 2996, is this the correct one? The bobbin case seems to be much 'thinner' than most that I am familiar with.


If you could help with some of my questions on this machine that would be awesome!
By Tourmax
#15844
TaraH wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:32 pm A friend of mine recently gifted this same machine to me. She said that it was sewing beautifully but it has now been sitting a couple years, unused.

It sounds as if you have had quite the adventure in getting your machine going.

I am looking for the manual for it and your post is the only one google can find for a Singer 331K105.

The machine came without a bobbin, other 331K models are using a 2996, is this the correct one? The bobbin case seems to be much 'thinner' than most that I am familiar with.


If you could help with some of my questions on this machine that would be awesome!
It's still a 331K so any parts for a 331K will fit a 331K105. The only difference between a regular 331K and the 105 is the presser foot mechanism.

I've never found a specific owners manual for a 331k105. Best bet is to find the service manual, which has 99% of the info needed for 331k105 models.

for example: https://www.supsew.com/download/Singer/ ... Manual.pdf

The service manual is essentially the owners manual without all the "fluff" on stitches and attachments, but much more in depth on timing, repair and adjustments. If you want more of the "fluff" that's usually in an owners manual, a standard owners manual for a 331k will work just fine.

the 331k105 is also just an updated Singer 31-19/31-47. Mostly cosmetic to make it competitive with it's contemporaries. Download the manual for that one and you'll get the rest of the info you need to deal with teh "kicking foot" of the 105: https://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machin ... manual.pdf
LLeeT liked this

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