Just because they are hard to find

What are these "cams" and what do they do?

-- Jo in Scotland

(snip)

Some machines (several 1970's Singer models in particular) do fancy stitches but require you to drop a cam into the machine so it knows how. Those are the sort of disk things in the picture for the first lot. If you do not have the cams you cannot do the stitches. Seldom do used models come with a full set of cams, often they come with none at all.

IME the things do not work very well, but then the only ones of those models I have ever had a shot at were my mom's and my old high school's. You certainly could not expect either of those to be in proper working order!

NightMist

I love shopgoodwill.com. I search most days. Currently I'm looking at a serger they have. Lost the ones they had last week as I had to be elsewhere when the sale was ending. I'll only bid just before the sale ends so as to not up the prices...same w/ebay...but I'm not a frequenter of that site...way too much stuff to wade through. Plus I'd rather see my $$ go to an reputable, charitable organization versus a private individual if I'm paying for shipping as well. If only I could find what I want locally!

Kim in NJ

Hide quoted text -

I have a 1977 model Kenmore (Sears) with cams - I have all the cams - they worked very well for me, when I was making decorative embroideries around collars and cuffs, etc. I haven't used them for decades, though.

N.

My old Elna has a few built-in stitches and also has cams for more stitches. You can get various effects from the cams by combining them with the built-ins. I thought they worked well. One thing I liked about the cams was that I could add stitches by buying new cams. I think the machine came with about a half-dozen cams. Elna came out with a stretch stitch cam after I had my machine; I added that one and I think another one or two decorative ones.

Julia in MN