#singer sphinx

Would you just look at what my amazing husband got me for Valentine’s Day

Would you just look at it?? Its a 1903 Singer Sphinx. I’m calling her Cleo.

Its restoration time. Gonna clean the rust off the exposed metal bits, and very carefully clean the paint. Then its gotta be pulled all apart, cleaned and oiled, then put back together.

But I have a dilemma that I would like yalls opinion on (and maybe the decision should be made after all the needed work is done....). But the paint and gold decals are very badly damaged. Should I.... 1. Leave it as it is and seal it so it doesn’t get worse, 2. Touch up the decals so they’re more intact but still worn a bit, or 3. Strip the paint, repaint it, and replace the decals.

There are some things that may affect your opinions and my final decision. These machines are japanned (the black varnish) and you can’t really get that varnish anymore. Trying to match the color and finish would be next to impossible. I’m not sure if the body is rusted, she needs a heavy cleaning. The decals can be found online and I’m confident in my ability to place them. I’m also confident in my ability to just touch up the decals. These things are technically worth more with their original finish but I’m probably never going to sell this baby. This one is set up for treadle, but the bus does not have space for a treadle table so I’m going to convert it to a hand crank. Any hand crank I find will likely not be from the Sphinx design so I would have to redo the decals on the crank. And finally, the better it looks the more likely I am to use it instead of hand sewing.