fabric whisperer

My daughter is 12, and while I let her brother sew with my Husq's (I have a Designer I & Sapphire 850), my daughter isn't so careful... well, two summers ago, we found a curbside special at the end of a garage sale-ing day where they were tossing an old machine. It is in phenomenally clean & good condition! Has its own built-in table, etc.

It is an Elgin Model #2468 secured into its own table (flips down to hide the machine if you want just the table displayed).

We played with it for about an hour after cleaning up the dust bunnies, and it worked great. But when she went to sew her first official project (a pillow made with fleece), the feeddogs started running backwards. Yup, backwards, in tiny little increments. (I gave her good poly fleece, and we had Gutermann thread on it, so it wasn't junk supplies).

Hubby & I took off outer casings and troubleshot as best we could, but it looks like all the worm gears and connections are all fine, and running proper. Not sure what the problem is.

Needless to say, it was a curbside special (free) and with today's economy, I really cannot swing $90 for our local shop to look at it and see if it can be fixed. (their cost is $89.99 regardless of what machine it is, serger, embroidery, coverstitch, whatever).

This is a great machine, and I'd love to get it working again, as she is interested in using it. Any ideas of what could be making it stitch backward? Have already troubleshot the reverse mechanism, that's not it.

sewwhat85

not sure what could cause that good luck

MissM

Did a goggle and found these answers:

Stuck in Reverse
I recently acquired a Brother VX-1120 sewing machine. The problem is it's sewing in reverse. Can you help me?

Thanks.
Verna
7/25/2006
Dear Verna,

Make sure that the machine is in straight stitch forward and the stitch length is the highest level that it can go. If that doesn't make it go forward, you will have to use the old hair dryer trick. Take the top lid of the machine off and heat the inside with a heated hairdryer. Work the stitch length and the reverse until it frees up.


Thank you,
SewVac Doctor

fabric whisperer

we thought of it being stuck in reverse - but when you hit the reverse mode, it does full-length stitches reversed... release the reverse, and it still runs backwards, but with itty-bitty stitch lengths. We did this with the top casing off, and the bottom exposed - we don't see any swing arms or gears stuck?

nativetexan

sew from behind? sorry, can't think of an anwser for you.

fabric whisperer

bwahaa haa! my daughter is sitting here reading over my shoulder, that may work! :) She just said we're all crazy.

BellaBoo

This machine has a lot of settings. I would think one of the settings is not set right?

sharon b

Does it have cams and if so are they seated in correctly ?

fabric whisperer

here are pics of the machine: No cams in the unit binding it up or anything. We did play with all the other settings -- width of zigzag, length of straight stitch -- switching to bh & back, everything we could think of. We had 3 sets of eyes on it while cranking the handwheel, and none of could see anything out of line or not working as it should be... its got us stumped!

My daughter looked at me longingly when she saw this post and said, "mom, if it can be fixed, I could make my own quilt" -- I'm scared to let her alone with my husq's or my serger. She has always been into garment design... she's always been tall & skinny and we've had to make a lot of her own clothes (bottoms especially) because its impossible to buy a Sz. 6 waist / sz. 12 length combo off-the-rack. Sewing has been a part of our lives, she doesn't know any different. Now that she's getting ready to turn 13, she wants to do her own stuff.

Becky Crafts

Download a copy of the manual from the Elgin Website. It may have a troubleshooting section that could help. I put Elgin Sewing Machine Manual in & it was a free download.