Repurposing a Cast Iron Sewing Machine Base

I was beginning to think that I had dreamt that I bought a cast iron sewing machine base.  I must have made 10 trips through the house and barn looking for it.  I walked through cobwebs and through the barn loft until I thought I would faint.

Finally I gave up looking.  R and I were busy today changing out the well pressure tank and replacing some sections of ill installed copper pipe.  Exactly who uses short sections and elbows galore when a straight piece 8 feet long would work perfect?  It was during one of my many trips through the basement and out the basement door that something caught my eye.  There it was.....just where I put it 2 years ago.  

It was 630PM and my local ACE Hardware closes at 7PM.  So I threw one side into my vehicle and took off to buy solid steel rods and acorn nuts.

The rods came in 48 inch lengths which believe it or not was just the length that I thought would work perfect with the glass top.  The base needed to be wider to support the glass top but not so wide that the proportions would look odd.

Dan, my hardware guy, cut threads in the steel rods for me but only after we figured out which size acorn nuts would work best.  He than checked out the thread count and pitch so that he could cut the threads to match.  He used a button die to cut the threads.  I have a complete set in my tool box but I thought he had a thread cutting machine in the back.  It was only after he cut them that I found out he just used button dies.

We double checked the acorn nuts to make sure they worked.....and they did.  Good job Dan.  The cost was a little over 17 bucks.

Tomorrow I'll clean up the base and spray paint it satin black.  I won't need to sandblast it as it doesn't have much rust that can't be removed with a brass brush. It appears that the base was only painted one time, so there is very little loss of detail that happens when multiple layers of paint fill in voids and obscures subtle details.

I'll need to clean the rods with alcohol or paint thinner to remove the protective coating of oil so that the paint will stick.  The only detail that I need to figure out is what I am going to put on the top of the base where it contacts the glass.  Probably some sort of rubber or foam with a sticky back.

By tomorrow night I should have a console table made out of a free piece of tempered glass and a 16 dollar vintage cast iron sewing machine base.

BTW within 1 hour of placing the two table bases out to the curb, they were picked up by a scrapper.

Reuse Repurpose Recycle 

Curbside Treasures and What are We Going to Do with Them

Seriously R should go pro.  He is finding so much stuff that I just can't keep up.

The first item was a newish metal and glass computer table (rt side of photo) with a pull out keyboard shelf.  I can't use the table but the rectangular shaped piece of glass went into my glass stash.  I have round, square, and rectangular pieces that I can use to make a small table top or a shelf.  

The photo below shows the computer desk without the glass because I had already added it to my stash pile of tempered glass.

You can buy pieces like this at Pier 1.  But why buy when it's free.  I've given a few pieces away to people who have asked me " where can I get a piece of glass for a table top?"  

Don't use single window pane glass for a table top or shelf.  You need to use tempered glass which is stronger and will break into a million little pieces rather than large jagged pieces that are dangerous.

The other curbside treasure was a glass top coffee table with a metal bottom.  The glass top is a bowed rectangular shape.  There was a $5 sticker on it from a garage sale.  The glass is worth more than 5 bucks.  It looks like no one bought it at a garage sale so they put it out to the street.

I'm keeping just the glass from this piece, too.  I love the shape.  I already know what I am going to do with it.  I have several cast iron sewing machine bases that I have purchased over the years.  One in particular is just the ends and the steel rod that the foot treadle rode on.  I wish I had a photo of it to show you but I could not find it in the barn or the basement.  I'm pretty sure it is in the barn but it was about 120 degrees up in the loft so I might have been looking right at it and could not see it.

I will need to get a longer rod so I can extend the sides to accommodate the longer piece of glass.  I am hoping to add two additional rods at the top for greater stability.  Fingers crossed that there is an appropriate place to drill a hole.

Of course it will be painted in satin black and should make a nice console table for the deck.  I have a narrow area on the deck where I think this will work perfect.

I could also use it as a sofa table behind one of my vintage wrought iron Woodard sofas. One of my Woodard lamps would look perfect behind a Woodard sofa.  They are pretty rare and I have 4 of them.  I have yet to run across any other lamps.  

I was lucky that I got these.  I was buying a Woodard tea cart from a seller in Owosso, Michigan (home to Woodard Furniture) and I mentioned to the guy that I collected Woodard furniture and was using the tea cart in my older home.  He then asked me if I was interested in lamps. I asked 'what kind of lamps' and he said 'Woodard'.  I said 'of course' even though I had no idea what a Woodard lamp looked like.

He said he wanted them to go to someone who liked and appreciated Woodard furniture and asked me not to resell them.  He said his late father worked at the Woodard factory and these were his.  I agreed not to resell and asked 'how much?'and that is when he said '10 bucks each'.

I was thrilled.  One of the lamps is the oak leaf acorn pattern that I have a lot of pieces and the other three are the daisy pattern.  Once they are all painted the same color as the furniture it will not matter one bit if the pattern is different or not.

Oh man, have you ever not been able to find something in your house then all of a sudden out of the blue, you remember where you think you have put it?  It just hit me that the cast iron sewing machine base might be in the garden shed or the sun room (excess project furniture storage room).

Both the metal desk and coffee table base will go out to the curb where I am sure a scrapper will pick them up before the trash truck shows up.  It's the beauty of recycling and reusing.