Necchi BU restoration.

Today, this came, in all its musty, dusty, crusty glory.

A Necchi BU in who-knows-what-kind-of-condition, via Ebay. Oh, Ebay, you minx. I was given no promises that it ran; I was warned it “could use a new cord,” which in Ebay sewing machine sales speak usually means certain death if you plug in the current one. I knew what I was getting into. I welcomed it, even, because there is a weird brain buzzy joy I get from taking something that is a mess and watching my tinkering transform it into something smoothly functioning. It’s a compulsion now.

So I pulled it out of the box and surveyed the damage. There was so much crud inside of it that I didn’t even try to run it until I cleaned out everything I could reach with makeup brushes and old toothbrushes. I oiled the BEJEEZUS out of it. The handwheel/balance wheel turned very freely but did not move the needle up and down except a tiny bit at random so I thought something important was broken that was out of my league to fix. But I’m stubborn, and a little demented, so I oiled it and oiled it and it improved slightly but was still impossible to run. It was still too bound up.

My kitty supervised.

Then, with maniacal abandon, decide to bust out the WD40. I removed everything electrical, which for this model, meant unscrewing three screws (motor mount and light/back access panel screws). Having read that some people submerge frozen up machine heads in kerosene to loosen them up, I went hog wild with the WD40 (though I got smart and put a puppy pad beneath the machine to save myself a big mess). To my wonderment, it worked!

So a ton of WD40 and about a quarter of a bottle of sewing machine oil later, I have a functional Necchi BU! I also replaced a bobbin tire and the v-belt, which I feel like I should get a Boyscout badge for doing successfully.

Behold, this glorious wedding of form and function. Bask in the glorious design lines.