This is a 'Willcox & Gibbs' Chain stitch sewing machine. I did a lot of research, to find it was manufactured in the early 1860's - during the Civil War, and it was a Civil War reenactor who eventually bought it from me. I thought that was so cool! : )

This came out so well, and I loved it dearly, but it had to go, to afford to keep the next one.

Look at how wonderful & shiny the Silver plating came out. This was the First, & Last machine I ever used Silver Plating on.

Plating was SUCH a bear to do, & so unreliable, & expensive ($80. just for the solution - Thank you Douglas), not to mention all the other equipment (Slow cooker, electrical current generator, silver bars, etc, etc), or My time standing in the garage all winter, babysitting it (Hours, and HOURS, over soooo many days), and the general hassle of plating oversized items without getting buildup on overlapping areas, or worse, having it just flake off after all that work.

All those things happened, and I swore there would never be anymore plating in my future.

It was gorgeous in the end, but now I have a polishing wheel, so despite even more money spent on tools, it does a pretty good job, too, without all the dangerous chemicals, and breathing of fumes. Yay! : )

******** SIDE NOTE *********

What is a chain stitch? (I didn't know either.) Chain stitching is when they only use one thread, and as the needle goes down, a Looper on the bottom catches the thread, and holds it, til the next stitch comes, then releases the first loop (which is then held in place by the next loop). The stitching looks like a single line on the top side, but looks like a chain of loops on the bottom. (Interestingly, you can pull that entire line of loops out by simply tugging on one loose thread - but only in one direction).

I'd seen chain stitching when I was a kid, on big bags of dog food, but had no idea how they did it.

I did love tugging that thread out, though. : )

********* Here's how it works ***********

Looper grabs a loop from the needle

Needle comes down through that loop. Looper releases the first loop, and grabs a new one from the needle

Needle pulls up the thread, tightening the old loop as it goes.

If the timing is right, this results in a very nice stitch, and they're harder to pull apart than it might seem at first. There is a trick to it.

This is not quite how it looks on the Antique Sewing Machines I see, but the concept is the same.