He also conceived the bullet-shaped shuttle, which the White machine promptly adopted over its more traditional boat shuttle. That is, he rethought the entire powertrain-the mechanism that carries energy from the handwheel to the needlebar, to the bobbin driver, and to the feed dogs. In his design Whitehill retained the White machine's dimensions and most aspects of its exterior his contribution mainly consists of the new interior. He applied for patent on 1 July 1884 and received US patent 326821 on 22 September 1885. He then designed the sewing machine which would shortly become Singer's answer to the White machine. He proceeded to manufacture his own machines from about 1875 until 1883.

Scottish immigrant Robert Whitehill (1 June 1845 – 24 November 1903 ), founder of the Whitehill Manufacturing Company, became interested in sewing machines and subsequently patented an improvement to the take-up arm. In the decade that followed, another gentleman applied his mind to advancing the state of the art. * A few older machines have moved their bobbin winders to the high position, but they will still have a mounting lug for it in the original lower position. Within the 27 series are seen the following differences between versions: Characteristic Flat face plate, most are ornamented with grapevines but very early examples have a plain shiny finish.Split slide plates running the entire depth of bed.All machines in the 27 series (VS-1, VS-2, VS-3, 27, 28, 127, and 128) have the following distinguishing characteristics that can be used to differentiate them from other Singer machines: The many Vintage Singer sewing machine models look very similar.

Standard sewing machine serial numbers