Probably every couple of years, I get this question. It goes something like this:
“I opened up the top of my machine, and I found a spring laying in the bottom. Where does it go? ”
The machines in question are usually the Singer 401/403/500/503/411/421/431 and some of the related machines.
This is what the spring looks like.
Continue reading Reader Mail – January 2022 edition – Slant-o-matic spring gone rogue
As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’ve decided to finally set up the shop completely. With the way we all do things changing from day to day, this seemed like the right time.
For years, I’ve mentioned in posts that I would put this or that into the shop when I had a chance. Now that my IT work and sewing machine repairs have slowed to a halt due to the pandemic, it’s bubbled to the top of the list. Everything’s been photographed and a description added. I’ve tried to be as descriptive as possible but do check attached photos as well.
This means : Continue reading The shop is up and running!
Some of the most common sewing machine issues I hear are:
Something like this: Continue reading The loosest thread – Those pesky thread nests
Back in April and May of 2012, I wrote the two posts that would become the most popular posts on this site. These are the posts on how to adjust the Singer button controllers. I’ve yet to find another brand’s pedals with so much adjustment which is why I advocate keeping them.
Today, I’m going to add a little tidbit of information. Previously, we took care of a pedal that had been badly adjusted and was creating too much heat or was maybe not as responsive as you wanted – or a little too responsive and likely making noise.
What I didn’t cover at the time was how to adjust the pedal to get full speed. Continue reading Highway Star – Full speed from a Singer button controller
Electric Motor theory – why and how we lubricate
There have been a lot of discussions about sewing machine motor lubricants over the years and I thought I’d take a step further back and discuss why we do this, how we do this and why some of the information “out there” is sort of F.U.D. (<- Wikipedia Link)
First off: Why do we lube or oil a motor? (I’m a why person, have you noticed this yet?? I’m quite sure I drive some people nuts with my “whys?”… )
simply re-threading your machine when you have problems with it.
A quick note today folks! I’m inside waiting for the anti-inflammatories to kick in before I go back outside to do some bodywork on the truck so I thought I’d jot down a little note for you.
The traditional advice when you start to have tension problems with a machine seems to be “Re-thread it. Everything, the bobbin case and the top”.
Most of the time that usually means that people yank the thread out from the back – or some will cut it and remove from the front – then they re-thread and…. it doesn’t fix it. Sometimes it will but often it doesn’t.
So today I sat down at my industrial to sew a couple of hems. Yes, overkill but I like to exercise my machines a little sometimes. 😉 Immediately after sitting down, I noticed tension and stitch length problems.
Strangely, this photo doesn’t really show that there are 2 hems here. Stitch lines 2 and 4 are the problem hems. The bottom one is the most obvious, you can see loops and the stitch length kept changing. Continue reading PSA: Sometimes it’s not what it seems with your seams
In the last post, we talked about ways that thread nests can be solved from a user point of view. Today, I’m getting into the slightly more technical ways that the nests happen and how to deal with them, or when to take it in for service.
Continue reading Out of the nest – Ditching the Thread nests part 2
One of the most common issues that people bring machines to me for is tension.
The thing about it is that – in most cases – the tension issues are really not something that I need to address as a technician . Don’t get me wrong, there are some legitimate issues – mis-assembled tensioners or severely clogged up tensioners – to name a couple. Continue reading Fly little nestling – Ditching the Thread nests part 1
Note: This post is some of what we’ll be going through in the class I’m giving in William’s Lake next month.
The 401A, 403A, 411G, and 431Gs along with the 500A and the 503A (or the J version) are possibly some of my favorite Singer machines. There are a few more in this series as well, like the 401G and the 421G but I’ve honestly never laid hands on either of those models. These machines are all fundamentally the same with some small differences. They are all “Slant-O-Matics”, meaning that the whole stitching mechanism is tilted a little and angled toward the user to make the needle more visible.
Today, I’m going to talk a little about the differences and also about the one thing that makes some people shy away from these machines – the cam stack and stitch selectors are frozen. It’s typically easy to fix, so I want you all to know how to take care of it.
Continue reading Stuck in the Middle – Frozen Slant-O-Matics
