1970's Sewing Machine Review & Tutorial - Sears Kenmore 158.17550

 In this video I give an overview of the Sears Kenmore 158.17550 sewing machine. Learn all the parts and features of the machine as I thread it and sew with it. 

Hello everybody, and welcome back to the channel.  Today I am here with a Sears Kenmore sewing machine review / tutorial video.  So this is the Sears Kenmore 158 17550 model. It's made in Japan.  It's a nice heavy duty machine. It flows very smoothly and has a powerful motor. So I'm going to go over threading it, and it has a lot of unique parts and features that I'm going to go over as well. So let's get started.  If you have the Sears Kenmore 158.17550, drop a comment below. I would love to know anything else that you have to say about this.  And if you've just acquired this, or needed help threading it, I hope this is helpful to you.  So be sure to hit the Like aAnd Subscribe to my channel for more like this. So let's just start by going over all the basic features and parts of the machine. So we have our spool caps. We have two of them in case you wanted to do a twin needle. So either one of those will work. We have the bobbin winder.  We have the part that is the guide for the bobbin winder.  We have these thread guides.   So the thread will go from this guide to this guide, this guide around the tension disc, it clicks up into this little spot, and then it's in this wire, and then comes up around through the takeup lever. Down, down into a thread guide, into another thread guide, and finally into the needle. We'll go over that.  This is the presser foot pressure dial.  This is our reverse button.  This is our stitch length around here.  There's numbers 0 to 12, so that's our stitch length. Then we have our stitch width down here.  So how the stitch width works, is if you have it all the way at the zero, it's also labeled as an S.  That's going to make a straight stitch.  If you turn it up to a one, it's going to make a narrow zigzag.  If you turn it all the way up to a four, it's going to make a really wide zigzag.  So it's technically always in zigzag mode, just if the zigzag is narrow enough, it's actually straight.  So that's how they have that.  And then this is the stitch selector dial, so you can set it to that straight AKA zigzag thing.  And then we have some overcasts, and then a three-point zigzag, and then it also has this spot that says cam.  So if you open this up on top, this is where you can place different design cams, so other stitches.  You could insert that there.  Then we have our power switch, and our flywheel, of course.   And inside the flywheel, you can disengage the clutch by holding on to the outside and turning the inner part forward.  Then on the back, I thought this was pretty cool. There is a reverse stitch length dial.  So we're going to play with that.  And we have our presser foot lever back here.  And that's about everything.  Let's look down here by the bobbin.  Okay down here we have our needle plate with all of our seam allowance markings.  And then we have this plate which we can take off by going like that, and pulling it out.  Okay and then this is a really cool feature this machine has, it's a needle plate that comes out, but it's just this little part that comes out, so that you can choose if you want this hole in your needle plate, this oval hole, or this little hole that only the needle can get through.  So the purpose of this is if you're doing a straight stitch on something sheer or thin, and the material just wants to keep getting sucked down inside the where the bobbin is, you can flip it so that the the single hole is what your needle goes through.  So you would take it like this, put that little tab down in first, and then just lay it in there.  And then you have a smaller hole, so that you don't have that problem.  Then when you need to do zigzags or anything where you need that oval hole, you can just take it out and flip it back.  I thought that was a very cool feature.  So okay, so let's go ahead and remove the bobbin.  So this has a side loading bobbin.  So you're just going to reach in here and there's a little horizontal lever that you can grab onto, and pull it out.  So this is how it looks.  The bobbin inside it, we can take that out.  And then this is the little horizontal lever that releases it.  So when you reach in there you'll just reach for that and open that up and just pull it straight out.  Then when you go to put the bobbin back in, here's how I like to remember how to do this.  So when you look at the bobbin, see that the bobbin case?  See that little slash hole?  So you take your bobbin, and it has a way that it goes in.  So the slash is coming from this direction, like towards me, so I don't want the thread when I look at the bobbin to be coming towards me, how it currently is.  Like it's coming from back here towards me, the same direction as that slash.  That's what we don't want.  We want to flip it over so it's going the opposite direction.  So the thread is going this way, and the slash is going back this way.  So like that.  Put it in there, and then bring the thread through the little slash, and then keep pulling it so it comes through that little oval hole, and you'll hear it click.  Oops, like that.  So then to reinsert it, you just have to hold on to it so your bobbin doesn't fall out.  Flip it over like this, and then we have this rod that sticks out the top.  And you just want to remember your lever goes horizontally.  Okay so before we insert the bobbin case, we want to make sure the needle's at its highest position.  And if it's not, just reach over to the fly wheel and turn it towards you until it is.  Then take your bobbin case with this rod going up, and the lever going horizontally, and then you can insert this.  There's a spindle in there that'll go right through the center of the bobbin.   So you're going to find where that is and put the bobbin in, and then you might have to turn it side to side, but you'll press in the center, and you'll hear it click and that rod that was at the top, there's a little divot which it fits into, so if you get it perfectly in there and just click in the middle, then you got it.  Okay so our bobbin is in.  And then another thing I wanted to mention is there's a little thread cutter here actually on the side of the presser foot right here.  This little black thing's a thread cutter.  And of course, we have our screw to remove our different presser feet, and our screw to change our needle set screw.  Okay so let's thread the top of this machine.

Okay so let's thread the top of the machine.  So pick one of your spool pins and put your thread on it.  And then you're going to come around this first little loop-de-loop guide here.  So if you just take it in both hands like this, and bring the thread behind the guide, then take your right hand and do a little counterclockwise motion, it'll go right through there.  You could also, if you wanted to, just thread it right through the hole. Okay same thing with this guide here.  So take it in both hands, bring it onto this side of the guide, and then take your right hand in a little counterclockwise motion again.  Okay so then we'll come down here.  Okay so then we're going to take the thread in both hands and just bring it through the tension assembly.  Here it's going to go in between the discs.  And then you're going to take this hand, and bring it way over here, hear that click?   And then when you release it, it has made its little spot up here in the divot of that tension assembly.  And then you can see it is under that wire part.  Okay so then we're going to take the thread and come up through this guide, which opens to that side.  If you bring it around it'll go right in.  Then we go through the hole on the takeup lever.

And we'll take it through this guide, and we'll come down.  So you'll see there are two guides, here, and here.  And then there are two wire guides, here.   And on the other side of the needle.  See those two and two, and two and two?  So pick either left or right, and go with the guides.  And then if you were to use the twin needle, then you would use both.  So these ones just kind of pop in.  And then these ones come from you go from behind so you're in the little wire.  And then finally, we will thread the needle from front to back, so it should look like that.  Just come straight down into the needle from front to back and then bring the thread through the opening on the front of the presser foot, and just let it hang out back here.  Then when you're ready to bring up your bobbin thread, we're going to hold on to this needle thread that's coming out of the needle.  Then you're going to turn your flywheel towards you, and the needle's going to go down, and it's going to come back up, and it's going to have that yellow bobbin thread with it.  I'm just giving a slight tug on the one that's in my hand, and you can see that little yellow loop came.  So then you grab that little loop.  You might need to use an object to help you get it. Okay so we have our bobbin thread pulled up through the hole.  We're going to pull that out a little long.  And now we are going to put the plate back on.  So you just take your plate with the two tabs to the back ,and put those in first like that  And then press down on the front. Okay so we should be ready to sew now.  So let's try it.  Okay so let's sew with it.  So I'm going to put some white cotton underneath the presser foot here, lower the presser foot lever, and press the pedal. Then when you're done you just have to turn the hand wheel towards you to get your needle up out of the fabric into the highest position.  Then lift your presser foot lever back here pull your fabric out.  And then if you want to use the thread cutter, you would just take your thread like this over the top of that black thread cutter and pull down.  So that looks great overall.  I think the Sears Kenmore 158.17550 is a great machine.  If you have this machine I think it's definitely worth it to keep it running, and keep using it, because it has a powerful motor, and it's a really well-made machine, and it has a lot of really cool and unique features, like the single hole needle plate insert, and the back stitch length selector dial on the back, that's interesting, and it's a really nice machine to sew with.  So I would highly recommend keeping it, or buying it.  It's a good machine.  So I hope this video was helpful to you.  If you have this machine and have anything else to add, please drop it in the comments below.  And don't forget to Like this video and Subscribe to my channel for more content like this. Thank you so much for watching!