Riccar 3600: The Good, The Bad, & The Pretty

I buy very few sewing machines these days.  I would be happy to downsize the herd.  But every once in a while something tempting comes by.  What made this one irresistible?

Riccar:  a couple of them have sashayed through here and they were terrific machines.  Didn't automatically mean that this one would be though.

It has a free arm.

And obviously, the REAL reason I bought it:  It's PINK.

And the price was thrift-store-reasonable, so it came home with me.  I spent zero time in the store checking it out.  Sometimes I do much more, taking top and bottom off to check for plastic.  It's mostly a question of mood.  Sometimes I just feel like rolling the dice.

So which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?  Should I extol the many virtues of this machine and discuss all of its features, building the excitement to a fever pitch?  Only to reveal the (possibly future) fatal flaw?

Guess I'll start with the bad news.

I don't know what to call this part.  Gear-thingy is my best attempt.  It goes around.  It has fingers sticking out.  Those fingers push on the bars you see to the left and extending to the left edge of the photo.  They meet the cam stack off to the left and drive the cams.

When I first saw the crack I thought it was threads caught on the gear-thingy, but no such luck.  And there is another crack of a different shape on the opposite side of the gear-thingy.  Definitely cracks, you can feel them easily.

So that's the bad news.  Yet I am not heartbroken.  Tell you why later.  However I am EXTREMELY IRRITATED with the fools who designed this machine.  As I cleaned it I did not find any other plastic parts.  The cams in the cam stack are metal.  The top gear is metal.  WHY, OH WHY???  Why this one critical part in plastic?  If I had a time machine I would go back and slap them in the face.  With a really nice pair of long leather gloves.

While you are waiting for me to reveal the ultimate fate of this machine, let's talk about all of its good features.

It has a free arm, which is a relative rare feature on a good vintage machine.  (See this previous post on the difference between good vintage and crappy vintage.)  Sleeves and pant legs, among other things, are much easier with a free arm.

There's a handy ruler.  And FYI you can buy rulers-as-tape and stick them on the edge of your sewing machine cabinet.  They come in both a paper or plastic tape and as steel tape.  I can't imagine life without them.

It has a convenient handle.  And although it is quite heavy, it is not as heavy as a Singer 237.  Specifically that one because I picked one up last week.  Sorry, I forgot to weigh it.  And Google doesn't know.

The part-which-removes-to-create-the-free-arm contains an accessories tray and half a dozen posts for the bobbins.  Which are class 206 bobbins, not class 15.  Rather unusual.  The bobbins came with the machine.

This the coolest feature of this machine.  With the free arm in place you can flip open the top of the accessory tray, flip down the bobbin case access door and change the bobbin.  No need to remove "the part-which-removes-to-create-the-free-arm".  Extremely easy access to the bobbin in other words.

It is a multistitch machine

I tested the zigzag and blind hem only (so far) and they work.  Stitch length and width work.

Needle position works.

Next I looked on the top for the bobbin winder.  No bobbin winder.  I had noticed the bump on the handwheel side but hadn't checked it out yet.  Indeed it hides the bobbin winder under a hinged cover.

I then looked for thread guides and didn't see any.  So I just threw it on there.

Don't do it this way.

And I got the lousy results that my lack of attention earned.

Experienced sewing people know that the way that the bobbin is wound really, really matters.  Thread spooling up off a bobbin wound this badly will feed unevenly which will mess up your stitches.

So I slowed down a bit and took a closer look at the machine.  And wound the thread off of the badly wound bobbin onto another bobbin.

The bobbin winder thread guide/tensioner hides on the back right corner of the machine.

And as you pull it out into position, it stops the needle motion while the bobbin is winding.  Same thing that releasing the clutch knob on the hand wheel on the more usual vintage machine does.

In the photo above I have highlighted the thread path in red.

And using the machine correctly produces a much better-wound bobbin!

It came with a nice selection of presser feet, most of them snap-on.  The snap-on shank and zigzag foot are on the machine.

Top left is an attachment screw but the others are a mystery to me.  Any knowledge gratefully received, leave a comment below.

 I feel like I should recognize this spring, but it isn't coming to me.

 Things end up with sewing machines that are not sewing machine related.  Or maybe came from a different machine entirely.

 Like this broken feed dog, which I think came off of a sraight stitch only machine.

A cheap plastic case is better than no case at all.

And a poor paint job in PINK is better than any other paint job in black or beige.  In person these are obviously paint job issues rather than wear.  And even if it was wear, that would also indicate a poor paint job.

I did not find any "Made In ..." on the machine, but the motor was made in Taiwan.  By a Japanese company.

There are a lots of clues here that this was made very late in the "good vintage" era of machines.  I confess that I have only done a one-minute Google search, mostly looking for a free manual.  Didn't find one.  I may look for for information later but right now I really don't need to do that.

So, lovely machine, everything works, very cute, free arm, etc, etc.  Problem is, I can't sell it.  Because of that cracked gear-thingy.  Those aren't just surface scratches, they go deep.  One of these days it will fail.  Could be tomorrow, could be 20 years from now.  I can't sell it.

And I'm trying really, really hard not to accumulate more machines.  But I have a plan for this one.  I have recently taken on a couple of sewing students, and this is a good machine for student use in the studio, right up until the minute that gear-thingy blows.

So even with the cracked piece I'm still quite happy about this acquisition.

* * * * * * * * * *
As always, I look forward to your comments below.  If you know anything about this machine I would love to hear it.  And I'll try not to feel guilty about being too lazy to search for the information myself.

 * * * * * * * * * *
And because we all enjoyed the recent troll, I have decided to begin sharing with you some of the comments that I delete from the blog.  I'm not sure what the posters get out of this, but they turn up on OLD blog posts.
 
First, there comes some strangely worded praise of my blog;

  Paul Brown said...

This article gives the light in which we can observe the reality. This is very nice one and gives indepth information. Thanks for this nice article.

 

Next comes a link to a business.  Not included here for obvious reasons and I have never clicked on one.

Regards,
DragonPoodle
providing "the light in which we can observe the reality"
Thanks, Paul Brown (probably not your real name)