I love the older Pfaff domestic machines and have a 1222 and a 1229. They are relatively easy to work on, clean, and adjust - although one thing to lookout for is they have a plastic drive gear which (not surprisingly) breaks after 50 years. It's easy to replace with new parts on ebay,
I use mine mainly for bar-tacking, and have modded one by removing the base plate, bolting it to bench, so it's just an arm to use on tricky accessories. The arm is probably the smallest I've seen on a domestic machine.
The reason I like them is they have a unique feature with a neat dropdown feedfoot, which really helps to stabilise things for bar-tacking and thicker fabrics or cord. The motor definitely has decent bit of power - definitely more than a Bernina 1090 of a similar era I have - so its surprisingly consistent on thick layers.
Afraid I haven't used any of the new heavier domestic machines (only the flyweight plastic-y ones, which don't bear thinking about) to compare to, but the old Pfaff are great machines if you can either find one in good nick or aren't afraid of a bit of trouble-shooting.
Edit @moocher I just remembered I did a post on my 1222 when I was doing the drive gear replacement, which might be helpful to see what’s involved https://www.instagram.com/p/CMBDX7xFnng
The later 1229 model hasn’t shown any signs of this plastic fatigue
@moocher what will you be doing with it?
I love the older Pfaff domestic machines and have a 1222 and a 1229. They are relatively easy to work on, clean, and adjust - although one thing to lookout for is they have a plastic drive gear which (not surprisingly) breaks after 50 years. It's easy to replace with new parts on ebay,
I use mine mainly for bar-tacking, and have modded one by removing the base plate, bolting it to bench, so it's just an arm to use on tricky accessories. The arm is probably the smallest I've seen on a domestic machine.
The reason I like them is they have a unique feature with a neat dropdown feedfoot, which really helps to stabilise things for bar-tacking and thicker fabrics or cord. The motor definitely has decent bit of power - definitely more than a Bernina 1090 of a similar era I have - so its surprisingly consistent on thick layers.
Afraid I haven't used any of the new heavier domestic machines (only the flyweight plastic-y ones, which don't bear thinking about) to compare to, but the old Pfaff are great machines if you can either find one in good nick or aren't afraid of a bit of trouble-shooting.
Edit @moocher I just remembered I did a post on my 1222 when I was doing the drive gear replacement, which might be helpful to see what’s involved
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMBDX7xFnng
The later 1229 model hasn’t shown any signs of this plastic fatigue