I taught myself how to sew on this monster, the Juki TSC441:
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My mother had a singer 501, last of the all metal gear machines. When she passed it was one of the things I kept. Thing ran flawlessly other than she knocked it out of time once. Took me less than 5 minutes to fix it.
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Found this laying with the transport case and accessories in a pile of furniture left out on the side of the road after somebody moved:
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I prefer the simplicity of older machines. Only issue is that some brands are hard to find parts. Singer, not at all. New machines are great, I just don't like electronics. The 501 uses cams that one inserts in place of another to do fancy stitching. I ran a leather manufacturing business for quite awhile, I was the chief mechanic, janitor, and ceo.