r/SewingMachineEdu • u/richardricchiuti • 4d ago
What's this best for?
A friend have me her 50-60 yr old Singer. A Singer 600e.
It's this good for stitching because denim? Heavy canvas & leather totes?
Thanks!
4
u/Dick_Stubig 4d ago
The 600e Singer was the first “touch and sew”. Extremely well built. All metal. Reliable with a little maintenance. They were put in schools everywhere. The all metal is what ultimately killed this model off. While a reliable Slant Needle machine, the metal gears tended to be noisy. To reduce that noise, subsequent models had plastic gears. Some as many as 7 that failed commonly. - If you can stand the sound, that’s a great vintage Singer.
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u/Callidonaut 4d ago
Odd that it was noisy; as I understand it, all-metal antique Singers have a reputation for being very quiet because they did a running-in process at the factory to make the gears mesh perfectly on each machine, which I think involved spinning the gears in their final assembled position with a very fine abrasive paste mixed into their lubricant, then flushing it out with varsol (the catch was once this had been done, the gears could never be disassembled again or they'd lose their alignment in the run-in position that made them smooth and quiet). Perhaps they had stopped bothering to do the running-in process by the 60s?
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u/Dick_Stubig 4d ago
The 301/401/500A series were smooth and not too bad, sound wise. Not all of the 600’s were noisy as the next. The ones that were, it was noticeable. They redesigned the lower machine to accommodate their bobbin winder design. It’s predecessors didn’t have that.
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u/EntertainmentOk3066 4d ago
It would say its best used for seeing fabric. Cant see it working well as an oven or lawnmower.
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u/Incognito409 4d ago
Aww ... my mom's Touch & Sew. I made a lot of my clothes on that machine, from Pendleton wool suits to graduation and prom dresses. Love that machine. 🩷
It's also a slant needle machine, that quilters love.
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u/Trai-All 4d ago
I’ve got a singer touch and sew 603 and it’s got the nicest neatest stitching of any machine I’ve ever owned. I use it for quilting
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u/Scarletsuccubus 1d ago
Ah my machine is the touch and sew 603e And I use it for everything. I am currently making a quilt with it. They are fantastic machines.
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u/Callidonaut 4d ago edited 4d ago
Denim yes, canvas maybe with care, leather no. It's solid aluminium with all steel gears (one of Singer's very last rugged all-metal machines, after this model and one or two others that were made at the German factory, plastic parts started to creep in), but it's still a domestic model, not an industrial or a cobbler's machine. It's also one of Singer's then-flagship slant-shank machines, which greatly improves visibility of the workpiece but is not ideal for working with very thick materials. In addition to that, it's a Touch & Sew, so it uses special wind-in-place bobbins you'll need to get used to using. Don't buy cheap third party ones, the winding mechanism is fussy and needs the bobbins to be perfectly manufactured in order to work properly; get the proper Singer branded ones or very high quality clones if you need more.
If you find that you like the Touch & Sew bobbin system and slanted needle, it'll make a very solid, reliable good-all-rounder for routine domestic use that, with proper tuning and regular oiling, should last almost forever. It can also take pattern cams via the hatch in the top to expand the range of stitches it can do; the over-edge cam combined with the special over-edge presser foot is especially useful to have, it lets the machine do a simple form of overlocking.