They come up now and then but always disappeared. I think this one was mainly because it was simply described as old, heavy and probably needing a service. All of which are probably true, but it does work (Kathryn largely got the threading, I just made a suggestion that was the final wiggle in the thread to make it work) and off it went.

Having proven that it works I spent 5 quid on a PDF download of the manual (having not managed to find it free anywhere) and here we are :)

G'luck with the hand-cranked singer :)