Not a lot of people can see potential in old, rusty things. They usually throw them away and thus ruin a bit of our history. It breaks my heart, but sometimes I’m lucky enough to meet a customer who shares the same view. In this case, I met a guy who wanted not only to keep, but to restore more than a 100 years old Johan Jax sewing machine, which was in his family for quite a while. Of course I was more than happy to help!
It took quite an effort and innovative ideas how to actually dissemble this magnificent machine to see if anything is missing or needs to be replaced. Of course I needed to have in mind how to put all the parts back together again later, which was quite a challenge. All parts were sandblasted and then sprayed with protective colour. I hand coloured the details with gold, trying to give it its original glory. Since I couldn’t find the original design of the fly wheel, I’ve decided to keep it as it was. With that I tried to preserve as much history as possible, instead of painting it plan black and ruin the original design.
I can tell the customer was more than happy and restored Johan Jax is still a proud part of the showcase in his shop.
Below you can see some pictures of the entire restoration process and some final shots. I know it is low quality, but sometimes the work is more important that documentation (:
