Portable sewing machines; great for those quick projects, but have you ever tried winding a bobbin for one by hand? What a pain! Full size sewing machines have a special setup for quickly winding thread onto empty bobbins, but I guess they couldn’t pack that much functionality into the portable one? Problem no more! Here is a quick project for anyone in possession of a portable sewing machine and wants the full, bobbin winding pleasure of a full size sewing machine.
There is one prerequisite to this project, you have to find something on your portable that spins. Hopefully, most of you that are reading this have the highly popular Singer that is featured in the picture at right sent in by one of our fans.
If it’s a button or knob similar to the pictured example, start by removing it. You’ll find a small, keyed shaft poking out of the housing. Next, fashion a small amount of InstaMorph onto the exposed shaft (careful not to attach it to the machine’s plastic housing). You should get a good impression of the key in your new InstaMorph knob, similar to the original you removed (see picture). The last part involves welding a second piece of InstaMorph to fashion the shaft for the bobbin to be placed on. Remember to make the shaft thick enough to fit snugly in the bobbin so that there is enough contact to spin the bobbin along with it when running.
Feedback from our InstaMorph Fans that have already tried this is the hardest thing is getting the mechanism not to wobble too much at high speeds. Regardless, this adds an essential, missing functionality back to these already versatile, portable workhorses of sewing satisfaction.