Kingston DeLuxe

And to continue my appreciation for midcentury sewing machines, I found a Kingston DeLuxe on Shopgoodwill. This is a Japanese clone of the Singer Class 15 machine. They badged these machines under lots of different names, and they were made by a variety of Japanese manufacturers after WWII. I've had my eye out for a colorful clone for a while now. This one is made by Brother, probably in the late 1940s to early 1950s.


The pictures really don't do the color justice, it has a faintly pearlescent crackle finish and is such a beautiful blue.


The base of this portable machine was a casualty of shipping. Why people at Goodwill think that some crumpled up kraft paper is sufficient padding for a 40 lb. sewing machine is beyond me. Luckily the machine itself appears to be relatively unscathed. The foot pedal snapped back together easily. The leaf spring on the bobbin slide plate was broken, but that part is readily available.


Most of the machines I've had shipped have had some case damage during shipping. I actually sort of expect it and temper my bidding accordingly. Luckily, the top of the case sustained little damage and the base was salvageable.


My primary enabler (AKA husband) cut a new piece of plywood for the bottom and glued it back together.


Check out the gorgeous scrollwork on the faceplate. I'm looking forward to sewing on this once I can replace the broken check spring on the upper tension assembly (that probably was broken prior to shipping). I'll be taking apart the tension unit this week after the replacement spring arrives. I haven't taken the tension apart on a Class 15 style machine before, but I've done it on a Featherweight and the TFSR site has a pretty good manual that covers refurbishment of Singer 66/99/15/201 machines; this should be close enough to the Class 15 that those instructions will work.