Kenmore 158.1040

My friend Janet has The Gift.  She can spot a great machine a mile away and this one is certainly a great machine.

There are six versions of what is affectionately known as the Keatherweight or Kennie, the venerable series of 3/4 highly portable, extremely versatile machines built in the early to middle 1970s by Maruzen in Japan.  The design was a joint effort between Sears and Maruzen involving three design engineers and their task was to shoehorn as much function into a small form as possible while making it aesthetically and ergonomically pleasing.  Despite its size, this design was no small task and from what I've read, it took several years to nail down.

Beginning with the 1020 (the most basic) and ending with the 1060 (the largest), the 1040 was and remains the most popular and most commonly found.  For those of you used to full-sized machines and/or the small, 1/2-size Singer Featherweight, it's quite an achievement: a lot of features in a small package.  The 1040 includes stretch and utility stitches via a cam stack, a 4-step buttonhole function, and even the plate insert feature -- one of Kenmore's best.  It's all-metal inside, although it weighs in at only about 17 pounds.

The machine comes in its own rose-embossed case which is clamshell-style, secured by two metal latches on the outside, two on the inside (activated by 'buttons' on the rib of the case on its sides).  The machine itself includes two bed extensions, length and width.  This means the total bed size is not that much smaller than a standard machine.  The width extension is actually an accessory box that is rolled forward and can be removed to access the bobbin area.  Kenmore was smart to simply use existing parts such as the full-sized bobbin/hook/race, pressure control, and winder mechanisms, grafting them onto the smaller frame by paying attention to clearances, which are tight.

So how does it sew?  Does the 1040's smaller size translate to a trade off in sewing competence?  Not a whit.  This little machine is a beast and can produce an excellent, fast stitch with the best of them.

There is so much to like about what Sears/Maruzen achieved but what I admire most is that there was absolutely no compromising the quality of the sewing experience.  The machine had not been run in many years and just like virtually all of the full-sized Kenmores I've owned and used, I plugged it in and it sewed a perfect zig-zag stitch right out of the case.  Now that I've cleaned and oiled it (I'm not quite finished cleaning it, as you can probably see in the pictures), it's fast, quiet, and strong.

These are highly collectible machines and if you happen to find one at a thrift store for a great price as Janet did, buy it.