These bed attachment holes tend to get crapped up over time with dried up oil, lint, and various other kinds of dirt. Since they're a fine thread (9/64-40 of all things), this can quickly jam up any kind of attachment screws you try to fit into them, unless you chase the threads with an appropriate tap.
Thankfully, while not a common size outside of the world of sewing machines, the tap is relatively easy to find. After running it through both holes, the thumb screw can now spin all the way in with ease.
Recently a Singer 301 popped up on the List of Craigs, as these things do, for an irresistibly low price. The machine is well known for its sewing speed, and a friend happened to be looking for a faster machine, so I picked it up.
Of course, the reason for this screaming deal is that the thread takeup lever was broken, and selling a broken sewing machine is an exercise in futility. There's just too many working machines available out there for the limited buyer's market to be satiated by, and most people are too afraid of sewing machines to even contemplate the idea of fixing one themselves.
However, I am not most people.
So as you can see above, the repair went very smoothly.
Prior to this I also cleaned the machine and relubricated it. The previous owner had done some cleaning, but they hadn't really disassembled much of the machine to do so and so there were some large semi-hidden areas that were still covered in probably 50 years of tobacco smoke tar. I didn't quite get everything smelling like a field of alpine wildflowers, but it's about as clean as it's gonna get.
I still need to chase some threads in the bed (an appropriate 9/64-40 tap should be arriving tomorrow), as the two holes that are used for mounting attachments like a T gauge seam guide, a swing-away double-fold binder, or a swing-away double-fold hemmer are a bit clogged up with a mix of lint and dried up oil. (A lot of folks these days prefer the ease-of-use of a magnetic seam guide rather than the older t-gauge style, but since this machine has an aluminum bed, those tend not to work as well here)
Anyway, the machine sews great, and soon it will be finding its way into my friend's sewing space to hopefully sew for many more years to come.
