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Saturday 29 September 2012

Sometimes If You Ask Them Really Nicely...




... you shall actually receive somethin' for FREE :)
I met the lovely Tania at Karen's V&A meet-up back at the beginning of this month where we all went to admire the gorgeous ballgowns (Tania's the lady in the great red stripey dress on Karen's post).
Photo of Tania's poorly "Naked" machine (photo taken from her blog)

At the time Tania had yet to start blogging - something she has now rectified with aplomb! In one of her posts she showed us a sorry picture of her quote "naked sewing machine" *sad face*. Her machine had a little accident in the boot of her car (ohh... that makes it sounds like it ticked off the mafia or was criminally damaged almost LOL!) and it won't work properly now!

Sadly, her machine is around 20 years old and she's got very little in the way of instructions to work from quote: "The manual I got with the machine is a folded A3 piece of paper!" unquote.

Oh dear me that won't do at all I thought to myself.

So, after a little searching online I tracked down the website for the manufacturer and with the help of Google Translate sent them a few emails.

Tania's sewing machine is a Japanese made one. It's the Jaguar 415 (sometimes called the J415 - not to be confused with a car BTW - which came up a few times when I was trawling the internet haha!)


The people at Jaguar were very sweet, and the sent me for FREE the instruction manual (4-pages), and the service manual which works for their 412 and 415 model sewing machines (27 pages). The PDF files they sent me were both in English (I don't know what other languages they'd have too - other than Japanese - though it doesn't hurt to ask ;) !). They dated from 1995, and the instruction manual file also has Spanish instructions (though the service manual is in 1 language only).
Images of the 2 manuals from Jaguar International Coporation

I have this evening emailed the files to Tania, so fingers-crossed she can nurse her machine back to health - and in so doing save herself ssome expensive repair costs (we hope).

So... you see sometimes if you ask them really nicely people (in this case the sewing machine company) will help you for free :)

If anyone else is looking for those 2 manuals you can find them here, where I've uploaded them here to my Google Drive (the new name for Google Docs apparently!).

Here endeth the Happy Tale!


15 comments:

  1. Claire, you are the sweetest person ever... Would love to catch up with you some time

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  2. A happy tale indeed!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
    Screwdriver will be coming out again tomorrow... :)

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  3. I now have bobbin winding again, and have fixed the needle tension so it no longer sits on 9!!
    Hurray!
    She's still a clunky old lady, but a few more months in her, at least?
    Thank you Claire x

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  4. Tania - hurray! All progress is good! Maybe a few parts inside are a little out of alignment? Or, maybe with a copy of the service manual to hand to the engineer for reference you could get a less expensive service carried out ? :)

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  5. @Rachel (House of Pinheiro) *Blushes* why thank you for your kind thoughts! And, yes we should meet up - maybe for coffee + sewing shopping ;)? Do you fancy Walthamstow some time... or is there somewhere nearer to you we could try (weekends are best for me as a work full time)?

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  6. THANK YOU ★ THANK YOU ★ THANK YOU for the Jaguar sewing machine manuals • Searched for hours on the internet until I found your blog containing EXACTLY what I needed. Your a star!!★

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  7. Thanks, Claire!
    We have a J415 from my mother-in-law and it seems we will start using it thanks to the COVID19 lock down and your manuals!
    Stay well!

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    Replies
    1. Hey - you're most welcome, you stay safe too + have a happy sew-y lockdown!

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  8. You are a legend I bought a this machine in 1997 /98 and now my daughter wants to use it and obviously I don’t have the manual anymore - I found parts and now this, thank you so much

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    Replies
    1. You are most welcome! I hope that your daughter enjoys sewing with her new-to-her machine!

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  9. What a lovely story, thankyou Claire.
    I just lost my father 6 months ago and we had to clear out his house which was heart breaking. My mother passed away 20 years ago. I was overcome when we found my mother's jaguar sewing machine 415, I have made a table where I have it on display waiting to use but I have no idea how to use it! I've been searching the internet, even Jaguar's website but they don't have this manual. I was excited when I found your page and you have so kindly uploaded the manual on your drive. Thank you thank you so much Claire, I'm overcome.
    Marisa

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    Replies
    1. Marisa, I am so sorry for your loss.
      I am happy to hear that you found the manual and that it'll help you to use your Mother's sewing machine ☺️.

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  10. I would like to say a huge thank you for the manual, I looked everywhere on the internet & all they wanted really was credit card details 😞

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  11. Hello, Claire!
    I have a Jaguar 415 which was own by my grabdmother, however the manual is nowhere to be found. I've searched all over the Internet, and found nothing huhu. Can you grant access to ny request on your gdrive?
    Thank you in advance!

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