Singer Attachment No. 160990 – Automatic Zigzagger

I never thought I’d get my hands on one of these, but wonders never cease. This is a Singer Automatic Zigzagger which I purchased today:

As sewing-machine technology improved significantly in the postwar years of the mid-1950s, with the the end of rationing (which in the United Kingdom, lasted twice as long as the war itself!), countries like America and the United Kingdom could start producing better and more advanced consumer-goods than ever. One of the new improvements was sewing-machines that could produce decorative zig-zag, slanting stitches, something unheard of before the war, with all prewar machines being ‘straight-stitchers’, performing a standard, straight lockstitch.

These newer, postwar machines worked by having the needlebar jerk back and forth, from left to right as the machine stitched from front to back. The side-to-side motion of the needle and the front-to-back motion of the machine allowed various types of decorative zigzag-stitches to be created. The machines were popular, but still very expensive. And Singer still had thousands of old-fashioned straight-stitch machines leftover from before the War. How to sell these older, increasingly out-of-date but still reliable machines to a public hungry for the newest postwar technology, not some dated, 1920s piece of junk?

Enter the automatic zigzagger.

A wide variety of zigzaggers, just like a wide variety of buttonholers, were produced by Singer, to be sold all over the world. This particular model, the 160990 (which also came in a 160991 variation), was manufactured for the European and British market (and by extension, the British Commonwealth) in Switzerland. It’s fitting that a country long-famed for its expertise in chocolates and watches, should manufacture an attachment of this quality. It’s exposed, it’s bare, it’s naked, it looks half-complete and you’re probably wondering where the rest of it is…but it is all there.

The beauty of this is that it’s very simple. The parts move freely and smoothly and won’t jam or seize up when the machine is in operation. It has a loose-ish feel to it, but that’s important when anything tighter would cause operational problems.

This zigzagger comes with its original cream box:

And it’s original manual:

It also comes with a dog-plate and all the necessary bits and pieces that go along with it. But most importantly, it comes with these:

These steel discs, roughly the size of a penny, are the cams that you insert into the zigzagger before commencing stitching. The cam you insert will determine the type of stitching that the zigzagger will produce. As the zigzagger operates, its arm will move over the ridges on the cams. The length and depth of each ridge determines the length and size of the stitch, and therefore, the pattern left behind by the zigzagger as it moves across the cloth.

They came in sets of five and ten cams (there’s eight there, so this would be a ten-cam set. Two of them are missing) as well as the zigzagger itself having a default cam set into it to produce a standard back-and-forth zigzag stitch.

Zigzaggers like these, with their cams, were simply fastened onto the machine via the presser-foot bar, in-place of the standard presser-foot. The arm or fork on the right of the zigzagger (in the photo above) went over and under the needle-clamp, moving up and down with the needle as the machine operated. These worked with all old-fashioned Singer straight-stitch machines and were very popular. For a couple of dollars more, you’d purchased a hardware upgrade to your machine and it could now compete with those newfangled “slantomatic” Singers that were just coming off the production-line.

 

24 thoughts on “Singer Attachment No. 160990 – Automatic Zigzagger

  1. Kerry Mitchell says:

    Hi I am a new treadler living in Western australia, I bought a 160990 zigzagger today but sadly no cams in sight. Is there any way to get copy cams cut?
    Kerry

     
    • scheong says:

      Hi Kerry,

      Yeah these things are pretty useless without the cam-discs. I am not aware of any way that you can get them cut, though. I’m pretty sure it could be done so long as you know what they look like, and have at least one cam to act as a guide, but otherwise, I’m not sure.

       
      • Jillian says:

        Actually it’s not useless at all. If there are no cams the attachment will still work a basic zig-zag stitch where you can adjust stitch length and width of bight. The cams are only for more decorative zig-zag based stitches, so disappointing if the cams are not around and you want to do more decorative stitching 🙂

         
      • Maria do Carmo says:

        Can you provide a copy of the manual for me please?

        Thanks

         
    • Maria do Carmo says:

      Please inform if you have the manual of authomatic zigzag singer 160990?

      Thanks

       
  2. Kerry Mitchell says:

    Hi I am a new treadler living in Western australia, I bought a 160990 zigzagger today but sadly no cams in sight. Is there any way to get copy cams cut?
    Kerry

     
    • scheong says:

      Hi Kerry,

      Yeah these things are pretty useless without the cam-discs. I am not aware of any way that you can get them cut, though. I’m pretty sure it could be done so long as you know what they look like, and have at least one cam to act as a guide, but otherwise, I’m not sure.

       
      • Jillian says:

        Actually it’s not useless at all. If there are no cams the attachment will still work a basic zig-zag stitch where you can adjust stitch length and width of bight. The cams are only for more decorative zig-zag based stitches, so disappointing if the cams are not around and you want to do more decorative stitching 🙂

         
      • Maria do Carmo says:

        Can you provide a copy of the manual for me please?

        Thanks

         
        • Marianne says:

          I found a manual not for the same model but may have some advice of use its for a 161102 for 15, 191, 201, 221, 222, and 1200. and a 161103 for machines of class 301

           
    • Maria do Carmo says:

      Please inform if you have the manual of authomatic zigzag singer 160990?

      Thanks

       
  3. Paula P says:

    Hi Kerry,
    I bought a singer featherweight on the local craiglist equivalent for 30 euros and surprisingly found one of these inside the box. A lucky find I now see 🙂
    I have three cams, 1,2 and 3, but would love to get the rest. One possibility for both scheong and I to get the cams would be, that you scanned the cams you have with some scale next to them and then we could “pirate” them at a laser cutter, 3D-printer etc. internet services. Would you be willing to do that?
    Having recently found these services I think its a pity how little they are used by the vintage sewing machine community. For example the rare and coveted gauge foot with its tiny gauges could quite easily be replicated at a 3d-printers, especially the gauges that are easily lost.

     
    • scheong says:

      Hi Paula,

      If you would contact me on my blog email address (it’s in the ‘About the Blogger/Blog’ pages), I’ll photograph & scale the cams for you to look at.

       
      • marianne says:

        Hi All
        Thank goodness you can still use it, I found it in my mums stuff, no cams, just looked it up to see what it was, how exciting to be able to turn a straight sewer into a zig-zagger, looking forward to giving it a go!

         
  4. Paula P says:

    Hi Kerry,
    I bought a singer featherweight on the local craiglist equivalent for 30 euros and surprisingly found one of these inside the box. A lucky find I now see 🙂
    I have three cams, 1,2 and 3, but would love to get the rest. One possibility for both scheong and I to get the cams would be, that you scanned the cams you have with some scale next to them and then we could “pirate” them at a laser cutter, 3D-printer etc. internet services. Would you be willing to do that?
    Having recently found these services I think its a pity how little they are used by the vintage sewing machine community. For example the rare and coveted gauge foot with its tiny gauges could quite easily be replicated at a 3d-printers, especially the gauges that are easily lost.

     
    • scheong says:

      Hi Paula,

      If you would contact me on my blog email address (it’s in the ‘About the Blogger/Blog’ pages), I’ll photograph & scale the cams for you to look at.

       
      • marianne says:

        Hi All
        Thank goodness you can still use it, I found it in my mums stuff, no cams, just looked it up to see what it was, how exciting to be able to turn a straight sewer into a zig-zagger, looking forward to giving it a go!

         
  5. Lena Mullen says:

    I think everyone is forgetting one important detail….which is that these attachments are actually a WALKING FOOT of most exquisetely fine engineering ! You just need to deactivate the arm that contacts the cam to do a straight stitch with walking foot action. Pull the thingyamy jig lever up ( the springy one…) and push the right hand back side levr across towards you to do this !!! If you have an instruction book you can read about it or maybe try youtube….

     
    • scheong says:

      Hi Lena,

      Yes I have the instruction booklet. It never occurred to me that this would function as a walking-foot! I’ll have to try that out!! Thanks!!

       
  6. Lena Mullen says:

    I think everyone is forgetting one important detail….which is that these attachments are actually a WALKING FOOT of most exquisetely fine engineering ! You just need to deactivate the arm that contacts the cam to do a straight stitch with walking foot action. Pull the thingyamy jig lever up ( the springy one…) and push the right hand back side levr across towards you to do this !!! If you have an instruction book you can read about it or maybe try youtube….

     
    • scheong says:

      Hi Lena,

      Yes I have the instruction booklet. It never occurred to me that this would function as a walking-foot! I’ll have to try that out!! Thanks!!

       
  7. I think the oldest zigzag attachments are from the 1930s, maybe they were invented earlier but I haven’t found any evidence of it. Pfaff’s first domestic swing needle zigzagger where model 130, introduced in 1932. Bernina introduced their first swing needle zigzagger in 1938. Their free arm zigzagger in 1944. I suppose development and distribution would have been much faster if it wasn’t for WWII. These are still very nice machines and works very well. I think Singers’ first zigzagger were developed in Germany and introduced in very small numbers in the late 1930s, but it wasn’t officially introduced until the 1950s. By then the Bernina, Elna and Pfaff had a few advantages over Singer. Singer’s first zigzag success were the 401, I think it came in 1958. The 401 and related models are still very much appreciated today. I don’t think it’s quite true Singer made the attachment to sell outdated straight stitcher, but they were slow to give the domestic zigzagger priority. For long model 201 was their flagship, and it was in production most of the 1950s. I think their priority was lasting and durable qualities. They already made industrial swing needle zigzaggers well before 1900, but were a bit late to focus on the domestic marked.

     
  8. I think the oldest zigzag attachments are from the 1930s, maybe they were invented earlier but I haven’t found any evidence of it. Pfaff’s first domestic swing needle zigzagger where model 130, introduced in 1932. Bernina introduced their first swing needle zigzagger in 1938. Their free arm zigzagger in 1944. I suppose development and distribution would have been much faster if it wasn’t for WWII. These are still very nice machines and works very well. I think Singers’ first zigzagger were developed in Germany and introduced in very small numbers in the late 1930s, but it wasn’t officially introduced until the 1950s. By then the Bernina, Elna and Pfaff had a few advantages over Singer. Singer’s first zigzag success were the 401, I think it came in 1958. The 401 and related models are still very much appreciated today. I don’t think it’s quite true Singer made the attachment to sell outdated straight stitcher, but they were slow to give the domestic zigzagger priority. For long model 201 was their flagship, and it was in production most of the 1950s. I think their priority was lasting and durable qualities. They already made industrial swing needle zigzaggers well before 1900, but were a bit late to focus on the domestic marked.

     
  9. ranoche says:

    i live in france and bought a singer 191B with a beautiful automatic zigzagger but i cannot get it to work: the cams turn by hand but don’t turn with the machine on,; so my machine just does straight stich with the zigzagger. i have the booklet and looked at videos on internet and my zigzagger seems installed correctly with the level on the right away from me (to do zigzaggs) .
    the machine is in mint state and does beautiful straight stich and was cleaned and oiled, the zigzagger looks brand new but i oiled it anyway using the booklet for reference, except i did not understand with part i was supposed to lubricate (maybe it’s missing that part?)
    somewhere on internet it says it is complex to ajust correctly the presser foot but i tried different settings and it still did not wordk

     

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