Singer Fashion Mate 360
The Singer Fashion Mate 360 is a step up from the Fashion Mate 362, adding the ability to use external stitch pattern cams, and a buttonhole setting.
Plastic parts in many machines made from the late sixties to early eighties tend to degrade over time, even if the machine has never been used. Despite looking factory-fresh, these parts, especially gears and stitch cams, can split, become loose, or shear off during use.
A look inside
The Fashion Mate 360, looks a lot like the Fashion Mate 362 when you remove the plastic shell. Most of the differences are deeper inside the machine and covered deeper into this article.
Plastic bobbin carrier
Unlike the in the Fashion Mate 362, Singer used a plastic bobbin carrier in the Fashion Mate 360. I don’t currently know the order that these two models were released, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that the Fashion Mate 360 was the later addition given the greater amount of plastics. Obviously a metal bobbin carrier is more durable than a plastic one, but plastic bobbin carriers don’t really wear out very often, and they’re usually inexpensive to replace. An added benefit to a plastic bobbin carrier is that a needle strike is a little less likely to force the needle bar upwards in it’s clamp, making it so that the hook can’t pick up the top thread as it passes the needle.
The metal bobbin carrier from the Fashion Mate 362 will fit in the Fashion Mate 360, but the little latch at the far left of the bobbin area that hold the bobbin carrier down, can’t swing into place since it (the metal bobbin carrier), is thicker than the plastic one. I didn’t attempt to alter the latch so that I could test the metal bobbin carrier in the Fashion Mate 360. It would probably work, but you’ll need to be careful and fully test for fitment, and collision before you trust it enough to run it under power. If you do, you do so at your own risk. Please make sure that you wear safety goggles since there’s a good chance that you will break a needle or two.
Tensioner
The Fashion Mate 360 and 362 use the same tensioner assembly. In the last photo in the galley above you’ll notice that the spring cup is missing the cross bar. This is a pretty common issue with Singer machines made in this time period. When that little cross bar breaks, the tension release pin can’t compress the tensioner spring (beehive spring), so normal actions like lifting the presser foot to thread the machine, or removing you work from under the foot are a lot more complicated by the fact that the tensioner is still tensioned. You can get around this by turning the tensioner adjustment knob to zero to remove your work or thread the machine, and then back to whatever number you had it set to, to resume, but that’s an annoyance that quickly becomes tiresome.
The good news is that swapping in a new tensioner is easy, but you’ll still need to adjust it correctly… obviously.
Don’t buy a vintage, or even a new old stock tensioner since you’d be getting plastic the same age as what came with your machine. Buy a new complete replacement tensioner assembly.
The set screw that holds the tensioner in place is inside the machine at the 12:00 position near the far end of the tensioner unit. See the photos in the gallery above. Back the set screw out a couple of turns and pull the tensioner straight out the front of the machine. Insert the new tensioner unit in the same position and snug the set screw down, but don’t go crazy, you can collapse the tensioner and it won’t function at all.
Cam stack
The Fashion Mate 360 has a simple Zig-Zag cam stack, and a mount for an external Singer flat cam to be installed. The gear that drives the cam stack is plastic, and it interacts with a worm gear milled into the main shaft of the machine. The internal Zig-Zag cam can be timed by loosening the two screws inset into the slots in cam. This adjustment also sets the timing of the external cam. I don’t think you have to worry about timing the cam stack gear to the worm gear since you can time the cam stack itself.
The large section of “E” clip fits into a deeper groove in the cam stack post, so you can’t put it in the wrong way, at least not without a lot of effort and a lot of damage.
The Singer flat cams aren’t as plentiful as the top hat style, but you can find models to print with a 3D printer. The one in the first photo is a multi stitch Zig-Zag that I printed a couple of years ago and it works quite well. I don’t know how well the 3D prints will hold up, but if you have a 3D printer you can always print another one if the cam deforms or breaks.
Removing the plastic gears
I didn’t replace the gears, so this isn’t a How-To, rather, it’s an overview of what’s needed to remove the gears. I’ve added captions to the images in the gallery above that walks through the process.
That’s it for now. Don’t forget to check out the article on the Singer Fashion Mate 362 since these two machines share exact of similar parts and assemblies.
Specifications
| Brand | Singer |
| Model | Fashion Mate 360 |
| Manufactured By | Singer |
| Made In | Italy |
| Hook Type | Rotary |
| Bobbin | Class 66 |
| Bobbin Case | Internal |
| Needle System | 15×1 Household |
| Foot Type | Low Shank |
| Construction | Mixed, Cast Iron Frame, Plastic Shell |
| Construction Drivetrain | Mixed, Plastic Gears, Timing Belt |
