Tinkering With High Performance Equipment. When Sewing Machines begin to fade.

I know I have talked about the Sewing machines often enough on the blog.  My desire to "MacGyver"  equipment  and machines stems from a number of things. I guess there is a genuine thirst for knowledge in discovering how things work.   I also like to take things apart and try to reassemble them without having too many parts left over.  Call it a memory challenge!  

There is also the desire to try to fix things without it costing me any money for an expensive repair.  Call me a Scrooge. 

Sometimes, Fixing things can get ugly!

Call me Frugal!  Or... more accurately, call me poor.  I believe Necessity is NOT solely responsible for all invention.   I do believe that Poverty has something to do with it.  (Or frugal, selfishness, pride, or any number of other reasons why we seek to fix things ourselves or make things better.  ) 

Yesterday,  The button machine was behaving badly.   After checking out all the possible candidates for problems,  I stumbled upon the Bobbin Shuttle hook not catching the thread as it should. 

The "Shuttle Bobbin Hook"

(Bobbin Shuttle Hook...  There is some "Sewing Jargon" for ya...) The hook on the embroidery machine is Dangerously sharp.   But the ones on the Singer Tradition has become blunted over time.  

Notch in Needle for shuttle hook.

For those NOT in the know:  The needle has a small gap/notch on the thread side, providing a small gap for the hook to loop the thread while missing the needle. 

On the underside, where the bobbin lives.   The hook has a small notch that allows the needle to slip down without hitting the Shuttle. It all happens in  the blink of an eye, and you will miss it if you do  not do the motion in slow motion.  OR hold you finger over the bobbin and feel for the thread as it loops over it.  ( have I lost you yet?) 

Notch for needle. Point grabs thread.

Bottom line:  The hook is not hooking the thread!   Causing the stitching to have gaps.. or just not stitch at all!  Time to replace the Shuttle!  

Can you do such a thing?  Turns out:  YES!  Hurray for Amazon!  The part does not even cost that much.   Cheryl will be ordering it tonight sometime and we'll get it soon, I'm sure.  

Both are worn, Left side is too dull.

As for now,  I have a back up Shuttle from the other Singer sewing machine... that was set up for embroidery.  I guess after 10 years of use, if you make 13,000 stockings...  Each with 7 to 10 buttons on each item..  That will eventually rub and wear away the metal of the shuttle.  Currently, the back up shuttle is working out great, so That is one of the reasons I know the shuttle was the problem.  Most of the time,  dirt and fiber build up are the cause for most problems.  This would make most small machine repairs look more like cleaning services rather than High Tech Engineering and maintenance services.

Think  Mom would have ever let me fix things?

My mother had a sewing machine for years and barely ever used it.  I would be willing to bet she never had more than 20 hours of operation time the ENTIRE life of the machine.   A few patches, a couple of pillows..  Nothing very challenging or major.  And if anything had ever gone wrong with it, I'm sure she would have retired it as "being Broke" and needing to be fixed.  I also wonder how Mom would have reacted had I broke out the screw driver and taken the thing apart... ( Probably not very good.)  Obviously, I got my tinking bug from somewhere else.. NOT in the family. 

But how else are you going to learn?  Pay money for college?  Trade School?  And then the tech changes, so you have to relearn all those tricks and tips again.  All the while watching your bank account drain away.   Wouldn't it be better to buy an item and take it apart on your own?  Besides the danger of electrocution..  what could possibly go wrong? 

Well,  the sales dipped a touch today,  hence the long blog post.  Cheryl was also able to run 7 miles, and still get all the stockings finished.  The last couple of days have been a steady stream of orders!  35 Tuesday and 38 yesterday.   Cheryl fears that if sales continue at that clip,  we may have to abandon the Santa Shuffle this weekend.  

The weather has warmed up at least.  Low 40's today, Compared to the teens and 20's of the last couple of days. Still, the wind makes things colder than they say on the thermometer.    This post is getting rather long and I better wrap things up.   I still have questions to answer, but at least I'm not totally exhausted.   Thanks for stopping in!  And the weekend is only a day away.   Hope everyone is having a great week so far and the weather is behaving nicely.