buy new foot pedal or buy new cheap machine?

[NinjaChipmunk]

my 40 or so year old singer starlet sewing machine has no foot as it self combusted just before i had ds (as I was making his curtains actually!). I now want to start sewing again but am wondering, should i buy a new foot pedal at about £40ish or get one of these?

does anyone know if they are any good or can recommend a cheap new machine or shall i plod on with my old one, give it a good servicing and a new foot? i can't spend more than about £50 odd quid either way....

I'm a fan of mend and make do, also I am highly sentimental, but I'd go for the new one. Was the Singer a very good and expensive model when you bought it?

Unless you have had your machine adequately maintained over the years, you will probably find that more things will go wrong with it. I think you might be throwing good money after bad, as such, to buy a new £40 foot for a knackered machine.

Also, if you require extra accessories such as feet you may find them harder to get than accessories for the new machine.

I think the modern, cheap machines are probably of equal standard, all things considered, to old ones that haven't been regularly maintained. New machines have new motors, are a heck of a lot lighter, have advanced internal mechanisms making them far more accurate (yes I know there's always someone's 70yo machine still going strong etc etc). I had a 20yo Singer and thought it was fab until I got a new Janome, then I realised what a struggle it had been trying to work with the past-it Singer!

have you tried on ebay??

I just spent a small fortune on a couple of feet for my ancient Bernina as I only had the one. I had been looking on ebay for weeks and nothing. So I order the parts from a store & quess what - now the ones I want are on bloody ebay! grrr!

i'm hoping if i give mine a good clean and an oil, i can then test it with the foot pedal from my mums machine to make sre it works and then buy a new foot pedal online. i fear that much as i'd like a new machine, i just can't afford a decent one! singers seem to last for years, so maybe i can get a bit more life out of it yet?

is cleaning them easy? its just fluff removal and oiling isn't it?

I took mine in to a local guy for servicing as it also needed a new pedal (the old one kept smoking whenever I used it)

The service was £50, another £20 for some minor parts plus another £30 for a pedal, but they were similar price when I looked online.

Could of spent that on a new machine! But the guy did say that my machine would out-live any modern machine & even me lol!

You could look around for a good current model that is a bit out of your price range & then look for an earlier version second hand?

Or look online for a maintenance tutorial - I imagine there wil be loads for a singer.

have you tried asking for a sewing machine on freecycle. some people have nice ones they never use and would be glad to send it of to a home where it was wanted. i have been on freecycle for years and this happens several times a year.