Singer Folding Sewing Table: Take 2

 I've been working a little every day on the restoration of my 1947 Singer Folding Sewing Table that goes with "Eva", the matching 1947 Featherweight. I have to keep working on it since it's taking up my husband's garage parking spot :) He needs to see progress to know he can park his car in the garage soon....

After removing the clamps from gluing the veneer I added some of the recommended Howard's Feed-N-Wax on the veneer to nourish and rehydrate. Then it was on to taking the table apart piece by piece.

First off was taking the legs off. Not an easy task because there is one screw (of the five) that is behind the folding mechanism and is REALLY hard to get to. I got two of the legs disassembled but had to call in my husband to get the other two off.

I used 3-in-1 oil and WD-40 to loosen up the screws. We succeeded in getting them all off and disassembled. Each group of parts were put into labeled zip bags for easy assembly down the road.

The leg hinges have hinge pins and washers, which I removed and cleaned. The washers were cleaned, de-rusted with some rust removing goop from a big box store, then painted.

Then I cleaned and polished the hinges using really fine steel wool and Nevr-Dull, a metal cleaning polish. The hinges cleaned up nicely. 

Next was removing the 3 metal brackets that actually hold the machine in place. Okay, two came out easily after a little oil soaked in. But the third bracket was a royal pain....it took 3 days of repeated oil and WD-40 applications to finally get one darned screw to budge. Never underestimate the use of lubricants, and a lot of patience, on a very stubborn screw!

Then the dry rotted leather pieces (that the machine rests on) had to be removed and will be replaced with velcro later on.

I steel wooled the brackets down, and used a very fine sanding sponge to prepare them for spray painting. The brackets were washed to remove any sanding debris and then dried in a low oven...yes, you read that right, a very low (140F) oven on a tray lined with a monogramed dish towel. I wanted to make sure no rust  appeared.

 I also prepared the roughed up, stubborn screw: it had to be filed down on the top to get rid of some rough edges, so painting it is necessary. It was also washed and dried with the brackets.

Rustolem Gloss Black spray paint was perfect for these parts, and will be used on the table legs as well. I used a cardboard box with a cardboard packing crate on top to set the brackets on and spray painted them (and the screw).

Two coats on each side and they look like new!

So far, so good. I like working on small parts first, a little every day. Next I'll tackle the black edges of the table top and the underside. Maybe by the weekend I'll have the table finished!