My Bowman Troubles

I thought I was all done with my restoration of the Bowman (pic at bottom of page). Boy was I sorely mistaken.

I had been anxiouly anticipating the arrival of a full set of feet and accessories for the machine, generously given to me by Katie...owner of the White Research Project website, when they arrived only yesterday. I tore open the package and set about attaching the foot I was missing. I had everything in place and began to sew...only to find that the feed dogs were not moving in an eliptical manner as they should. Nothing was happening.

After hours of inspection and many tears, I bullied my husband into taking a look. It took him all of five minutes to show me that a small wire spring had come loose and it was responsible for creating the forward and backward motion of the feed dogs. I almost laughed out loud. After all that work my husband comes along and fixes it in 5 minutes!! It's good to have a handy husband.

Now it works quite well. If I could only get my hands on an dirty and needy hand crank model from the 1800's I would be all ready to start working on it!

Kel