This is my beautiful hand-crank (converted from electric) early 1950's Singer 201k.

Nowhere near as rare or as old as some, but still pretty good I think.

I bought this machine about a year ago, and I had always intended to convert it.

I gave it a go with the motor still connected - it had a knee bar to run the motor, it had been certified as electrically safe, but the lever was... Sticky. Kept going for like 3 stitches after you'd release it. Very disconcerting.

Anyway I got a spoked wheel a couple of weeks ago, and a hand crank, and finally put it together to work as a fully off-grid sewing machine.

Interestingly! I'd always seen people say you have to get a new bobbin winder when you convert, but this is not so in this case!

My bobbin winder is adjustable. I love this. Someone, an engineer I guess in the electrical era, designed a part for this machine and any others with the same body, such that you could use the same part with a spoked wheel & a handcrank or with the smaller solid wheel & a motor. And it's beautifully cast and finished. Engineering as art and science.

I mean, there's a tiny little registration point on the bobbin winder so you can align the bobbin correctly and it doesn't slide around. On a modern equivalent that would be a casting artifact and a high tolerance for manufacturing imperfections and I didn't even realise for a reasonable while that it was deliberate and deliberately designed.