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1. Singer Vibrating Shuttle Sewing Machine
2. White Vibrating Shuttle Sewing Machine

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These manuals are scans taken from original Singer manuals that have been converted to Adobe PDF format for viewing/printing. Some of the original manuals are nearly 100 pages and the resulting files can be rather large, even when compressed into PDFs.

VIBRATING SHUTTLE. SEWING MACHINES. General Remarks. The above are included inl be price of the Machine. 11 The leather belt, which gives motion to the machine, should always be. DIRECTIONS FOR USING SINGER'S -OIL OIL. The design of the model 27 series began with Allen B. Wilson, who invented the vibrating shuttle in 1850 and sold machines built around it. Two decades later, when the patents had expired and the Sewing Machine Combination patent pool had dispersed, White Sewing Machine Company employees D'Arcy Porter and George W. Baker built a new machine that made successful use of it.

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Machines:

We also have manuals forIndustrial machines.

• 12K (3 MB)
• Singer 12K 'New Family', Instructions for using machine and attachments (Form K2); 12pp.
• 15-30 / 15-87 & generic 15 class machines (617K)
• 15-30 / 15-87 & generic 15 class machines
  - rotated for printing(617K)
• 15-90 (5MB)
• Reversible Feed, Oscillating Shuttle, For Family Use. Here is a high-res manual: 15-90 (50MB) Manuals provided by John Merritt.
• 15-91 (5.3 MB)
• 115 (4.5 MB)
• 'Instructions for using Singer Sewing Machine No. 115
  - lock stitch, for family use' Form 8255, May 1915 (32pp).
• 127 & 128 (2.7 MB)
• 192 Spartan (900 KB)
• Instructions for Singer's budget model (Form K6349), 4 pages.
  For more detailed instructions, see literature for the 99 (to
  which it is very similar).
• 201 (6.2 MB)
• 221K Featherweight (1.1 MB)
• The bare-necessities Featherweight manual.
• 221K Featherweight (10 MB)
• Instructions for using Singer Portable Electric Sewing Machine No. 221K, Rotary Hook, Reverse Feed, for family use, plus 'Instructions for using attachments etc. which may be purchased separately' - this includes: the feed cover plate (for darning) and embroidery. Dated November 1951 (Form no. K5710).
• 221-1 Featherweight (9 MB)
• 'Instructions for using Singer Portable Electric Sewing Machine 221-1 (Lockstitch, for family use with foot control). Form No. 19657.' Undated. It would have been originally supplied with American machines.
• 222K Free-arm Featherweight (12 MB)
• Dated November 1955 (Form K5969). Including how to use the attachments. 96pp.
• 301 (5.7 MB)
• 319K (16 MB)
• Instructions for using the Singer 319K automatic swing needle sewing machine (1957 - 108 pages). Before computerisation, embroidery stitches had to be achieved mechanically. This zigzag machine has a set of levers on the top which, in combination with the 30 supplied fashion discs (flat cams), manipulate the byte of the needle to form dozens of decorative stitches. There was a free-arm version (320K) and together they represent probably the last of Singer's rugged, 'all-metal' domestics.
• 327 (4.7 MB)
• Instructions for using the Singer 327 Sewing Machine. 32 pages.
• 401 (14 MB)
• Singer 401 'Slant-o-matic' zig-zag sewing machine - instructions for use; Form No. 4101; dated 1960. Slant needle machine using 'Special Discs' for decorative stitching. For electric or treadle use. Announced as 'the world's first automatic with a slant needle and gear drive...'. (96 pages)
• 404 (3.8 MB)
• 411G (5.3 MB)
• 'World's first automatic that produces not only the conventional lock stitch, but also a single thread chain stitch which can be used for basting seams . . . ' -manual courtesy Bill Holman of the Vintage Stitchers Family of Groups
• 431 (7.9 MB)
• 503 (9.1 MB)
• 66 (5.6 MB)
• From 1929
• 66-18 (13 MB)
• For using the Singer Electric Sewing Machine 66-18. (Provided by Jens Parks in honor of his mother.)
• Vibrating Shuttle (9 MB)
• For the Singer Vibrating Shuttle (VS) machine and its attachments, supplied by the Kilbowie factory; Form No. 1443; dated 1891 See Singer Vibrating Shuttle #1

• Attachments & Accessories:

• Blind Stitch Attachment (4.6 MB)
• Singer 'Famous' Buttonholer Models C and D (1.3 MB)
• Manual and Parts List courtesy of David Jones
• Lowshank Buttonholer Model 160743 (2.3 MB)
• Buttonhole Attachment Model 121795 (4.6 MB)
• Singer Buttonhole Attachment for Lockstitch Family Sewing Machines (Provided by Jens Parks in honor of his mother.)
• Buttonhole Attachment Model 121795 (1.2 MB)
• Older, poorer quality scan of the above.
• Professional Model Buttonholer (1.5 MB)
• Edgestitcher (2 MB)
• The Edge-stitcher: Singer attachment instructions; 4pp; 1916.
• Even-Feed / Walking Foot (7.2 MB)
• In two languages!
• Flat-Work Darner (1.2 MB)
• Foot-Bar Attachments (5 MB)
• 'Directions for using The Singer Manuf. Co.'s 1888 (Foot-bar) Set of Attachments' for the Improved Family and VS2 machines. It's a manual for the first puzzle box (which was patented in 1889); this is dated 1889. The ruffler and tucker are very early styles (patented 1888).
• Needle Threader (153 K)
• Singercraft Guide Number 2 (1.4 MB)
• Zig-Zagger (3.8 MB)

• Reference Works:

• Singer's Sewing Skills Reference Book (28 MB)
• Singer's Reference Book for Sewing Skills. Information on your machine, its attachments, and how to use them. (Provided by Jens Parks in honor of his mother.)

• Wiring:

• Wiring (402 K)
• Contains Featherweight-specific, and generic, wiring diagrams

Singer Vibrating Shuttle Sewing Machine

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White Vibrating Shuttle Sewing Machine

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A vibrating shuttle is a bobbin driver design used in home lockstitch sewing machines during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It supplanted earlier transverse shuttle designs, but was itself supplanted by rotating shuttle designs.

• 2History

Overview[edit]

In order to create a lockstitch a sewing machine intertwines two threads: an upper thread (descending with the needle into the workpiece from above) and a lower thread (ascending into the workpiece from the bobbin below). To intertwine them, the machine must pass its shuttle (containing the bobbin and the lower thread) through a loop temporarily created from the upper thread.

Early sewing machines of the 19th century oscillate their shuttles back and forth on horizontal tracks—an arrangement called a 'transverse shuttle'. A vibrating shuttle machine, by contrast, 'vibrates' its shuttle in a circular arc. This movement represents less total mechanical motion, which means less friction, less wear, higher maximum speed, and higher reliability than in a transverse shuttle system.^[1]

The shuttle itself is long and slender, shaped like a bullet, with a pointed tip that is sometimes called the hook. The tip is pointed for the purpose of intercepting the small loop temporarily created (by a brief upward needle motion) in the upper thread—see pictures below of its operation. The bobbin too is long and slender to fit inside the shuttle; in this regard it is very different than the fat rotary bobbins of later sewing machines.

History[edit]

Although popularized by Singer's 27/127 model series sewing machine, the vibrating shuttle was not invented at Singer.

Wilson[edit]

It was actually invented by Allen B. Wilson in 1850, just one year before he would invent the rotary hook design that would eventually prevail over all other lockstitch bobbin driver designs. Wilson's original patent is US patent 7776, granted 12 November 1850, with reissues RE345 on 22 January 1856 and RE414 on 9 December 1856. The second page of his patent, showing the shuttle in its arc, is shown at left.

He was soon beset with patent litigation from the owners of the John Bradshaw patent:

'He was approached by the owners of the Bradshaw 1848 patent, who claimed control of the double-pointed shuttle. Although this claim was without justification, as can be seen by examining the Bradshaw patent specifications, Wilson did not have sufficient funds to fight the claim. In order to avoid a suit, he relinquished to A. P. Kline and Edward Lee, a one-half interest in his U.S. patent 7,776 […]'^[2]

His machine 'had a considerable sale, but was not satisfactory to its inventor, who set himself to work to produce something more practical'—a new rotary hook design.^[3]

Porter and Baker[edit]

The vibrating shuttle got a new lease on life two decades later, in 1876 when all those patents had expired. The White Sewing Machine Company developed a machine around it which became the company's flagship product—so much so that it was originally named the 'White Sewing Machine', only later taking the name 'White Vibrating Shuttle' when a rotary hook model was added to the product line.

Whitehill[edit]

The vibrating shuttle's next development came in 1885, at the hands of Scottish immigrant Robert Whitehill. He designed a new machine around it which Singer bought and popularized.

The initial design of the Porter/Baker shuttle would change little throughout the 86 years^[4] that it would remain in production at White and then at Singer. This can be seen in the following shuttle-threading diagrams taken from the White and Singer instruction manuals:

Operation[edit]

The following photo gallery shows the vibrating shuttle cycling through a single stitch. In the pictures, the silver sliding covers have been opened to show the operation of the shuttle; normally they would be closed to prevent interference between the workpiece and the shuttle.

Obsolescence[edit]

The vibrating shuttle was a significant innovation towards the goal of a simple, fast, and reliable lockstitch sewing machine, and the design remained popular for decades. Indeed, even twenty-five years later, on 10 October 1910, Singer was awarded US patent 1005177 for a new shuttle-ejector mechanism for it. (The improvement is one of those incorporated into the 'modernized' models 127 and 128 that replaced the 27 and 28.)

Later sewing machines abandoned such designs in favor of the faster rotary and/or hook-based designs.

Rotary and hook-based designs are superior because they do not cause their sewing machine to shake and 'walk' the way that vibrating and transverse shuttles do. Vibrating shuttle machines nevertheless remained in production until the 1960s.^[5]

References[edit]

1. ^See text of this 1920s advertising card from Singer: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Singer.1920sAdvertisingFolder.back.jpg
2. ^Grace Rogers Cooper, The Invention of the Sewing Machine (1968), chapter two, page 26, retrieved 2010-08-05 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32677/32677.txt or 2010-08-31 from http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/HST/Cooper/CF/page_display_02.cfm?start=40
3. ^Adams, Charles Kendall (1895). Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia: A New Edition. p. 449.
4. ^First White Sewing Machine built in 1876, last documented Singer 128 production batch ET613325-ET638324 built in 1962; refer to the production records section of the Singer Model 27 and 127 page for details.
5. ^Last documented Singer 128 production batch ET613325-ET638324 built in 1962; refer to the production records section of the Singer Model 27 and 127 page for details.