Hello again.
A while back, I mentioned I had an old Singer. I lied. I went to get it from storage yesterday and it is in fact a Necchi 544 (not sure if Mk I or Mk II). Not sure why I mis-remembered it.
(BTW Sorry if I didn't reply consistently to everyone last time, I had flu [not man-flu!, the real stuff] and was half dead for 2 weeks).
Anyway, it's a bit stiff but does run (with some risk of straining the motor) and the mechanical actions seem correct. So I'm off to World of Sewing in Tunbridge Wells to compare a full service against a new machine of similar caliber. I think it should fix up fine, as long as the costs for a full stripdown, clean and relubrication (which I think is all it needs) isn't too excessive.
Next I'll be telling Necchi they need to get multilingual on their website - first time I've come across an international manufacturer in recent times where they hadn't been bothered to put up their site in at least 5 european languages.
Cheers
Tim