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elcid

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In one of my past lives I became an upholsterer, an industrial sewing machine is a powerful machine, capable enough to put a needle through your finger nail and when the needle comes up having created a stitch? OUCH it's that fast.
 
I have an Adler free arm with a 1/2 hp motor and a clutch. I've gotten a finger under the foot, but never under the needle. Ouch! That walking foot will walk over anything that gets under it. (it's just a different kind of threaded fastener!)
Doug
 
As an only child, I started sewing the local newspapers on an old Jones treadle machine. Then it got a little motor and then I got a Singer 201K Which I still have today.
They were wonderful things in days of abject poverty for perforating old newspapers in what Queen Victoria described as 'Thunder Boxes':D
The story- true or false was that the inventor had a dream of being chased by Zulu warriors with spears with holes in the pointed ends of their spears. So whatever next?

As a sort of after thought, I seem to recall that Model Engineer carried a design for a filing machine to use needle files with an old sewing machine. It sounds quite possible. My old Singer is shaft driven!
 
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You want OUCH! Imagine you're working on your mill. There is a small 3 - 4 pound machinists' vice on the table. You turn and your arm knocks it off the table. One of the corners lands DIRECTLY on your big toe (and you're wearing tennis shoes). I immediately sat down on the ground as I thought I was going to pass out. The big toe looked like it went through a meat grinder for weeks.
Grasshopper
 
As an only child, I started sewing the local newspapers on an old Jones treadle machine. Then it got a little motor and then I got a Singer 201K Which I still have today.
They were wonderful things in days of abject poverty for perforating old newspapers in what Queen Victoria described as 'Thunder Boxes':D
The story- true or false was that the inventor had a dream of being chased by Zulu warriors with spears with holes in the pointed ends of their spears. So whatever next?

As a sort of after thought, I seem to recall that Model Engineer carried a design for a filing machine to use needle files with an old sewing machine. It sounds quite possible. My old Singer is shaft driven!
Hi Goldstar,
I heard a story on Radio 4 many years ago about "Izal" medicated toilet paper. The company that made it started out by making coke for smelting steel. What was left over was coal tar and the chemist in their lab noticed that if a worker got a cut or other injury rubbed the coal tar on the wound and it healed without infection. Now, the gentleman in question had haemorrhoids and so he tried putting some of the coal tar on some toilet paper and found that the piles healed so he approached the management and the company started to manufacture the said product. They found that it took off and the demand was great but it had no name so he used an anagram of his girl friends name. When she found out what he had done she told him where he could stick his proposal of marriage. The company was "Wrights" who still make their famous "Coal Tar soap". I'll leave it up to you to suggest the young ladies name.
Have a happy Christmas and everybody stay safe.
 
Remember those big copper plated staples used on the bigger cardboard boxes? About 1 1/4" long. My Mom had Her finger stapled with one of those.
 
As an only child, I started sewing the local newspapers on an old Jones treadle machine. Then it got a little motor and then I got a Singer 201K Which I still have today.
They were wonderful things in days of abject poverty for perforating old newspapers in what Queen Victoria described as 'Thunder Boxes':D
The story- true or false was that the inventor had a dream of being chased by Zulu warriors with spears with holes in the pointed ends of their spears. So whatever next?

As a sort of after thought, I seem to recall that Model Engineer carried a design for a filing machine to use needle files with an old sewing machine. It sounds quite possible. My old Singer is shaft driven!
Singer sewing machines were made by the thousand in various countries, they had a huge factory in Clydebank, just North of Glasgow, Scotland.

https://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/l...nk-museum-exhibitions/singer-sewing-machines/
I've always admired these machines but with the decline in use here in UK I've seen barrow loads of them being carted away from market destined for African countries where they have been given new lives and creating many jobs
.
My model is a 99K31S, a three quarter size with electric motor and light, 1954, it sews leather easily.

Singer sewing machine motor. | Model Engineer
filing machine using a singer motor.
 
On the subject of Singe sewing machines:
On the Isle of Man, at one time virtually every household on the island had one.
This was because a ship went down just off the island's coast, loaded with SInger machines for export. The machines in their wooden cases washed up on the beaches and were enthusiastically claimed by the residents.
 
My wife was a sewing machinist all her working life... I'm sure the girls got "needled" at least 1 per year per factory. She would tell me the mechanic would pull the needle right through with his pliers, to stop it smarting. Tough when it was through the bone, easier if just through flesh and nail. Then a dab of Germolene and a plaster and, as long as it wasn't bleeding which would ruin garments, they would finish their shift... Tough, those girls!
But lovely as well!
I have a mate who took 1/4" off the end of his thumb - using a hand-held power plane on a bit of wood.... OUCH!
K2
 
My wife was a sewing machinist all her working life... I'm sure the girls got "needled" at least 1 per year per factory. She would tell me the mechanic would pull the needle right through with his pliers, to stop it smarting. Tough when it was through the bone, easier if just through flesh and nail. Then a dab of Germolene and a plaster and, as long as it wasn't bleeding which would ruin garments, they would finish their shift... Tough, those girls!
But lovely as well!
I have a mate who took 1/4" off the end of his thumb - using a hand-held power plane on a bit of wood.... OUCH!
K2
One of my employers, a WW2 RAF Squadron leader, spitfire and mosquito pilot, was making a part for his home brewed control system for our lower chairlift.
To finish it he was making a small wooden box, using his new toy, yep a hand planer, holding a small piece of wood in his hand he did what you mate did, sliced the top his thumb off, not quite to the bone but enough to square the end of it off, he was more worried about what his wife was going to say!
 
The inside of my left hand has a skin graft as a result of having an argument with a Myford PR11 planer thicknesser.
Perhaps you have heard of the RAF 'Guinea pigs' who were patched up by Sir Archie McIndoe of East Grinstead I was patched up by the plastic surgeon who next day was going there as a consultant.
Read the story of RAF's the Guinea Pig Club.
 

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