ArchaicArcane

Tri-Flow oil is not synthetic. The grease is though.

Grrr. The wording in those manuals is a pet peeve of mine and several service people I know. The machines are intended not to be oiled by the user - newer ones are barely even accessible even if you do know where to bear hug it (Seriously, I've bruised,... uh parts of me trying to hug tight enough in the right spots!) - they ARE meant to be serviced and oiled annually. SM techs are usually a little more accurate with the oil and don't endanger belts and computer boards thus voiding warranties.

Many SMTs, it appears however are no better at NOT breaking plastic tabs that hold bits together. The damage I find inside machines I service for the first time (but that have been serviced professionally previously) is disappointing.

Rodney

It's a lot cheaper to make something that snaps together than it is to pay for the extra steps to make something that's screwed together. I'm not sure if it falls under "value engineering" or "planned obsolescence". I hope it's just the cheaper machines that are designed that way.
Rodney

ArchaicArcane

I have to bear hug $10K sewing machines - their clips are the hardest usually - the least flex in the body to accommodate the release of the clips.

Mickey2

Haha, $10K machines are clipped? I'm not sure I've seen that expensive machines, half they price I have though. As long as it's done well and it works I suppose it doesn't matter that much. I remember a conversation at the local sewing machine store years ago. Someone was comparing new machines to old and bragged something awful of the new computerised features and the fact you don't oil them. Everything with them was much better and easier in her opinion. We sat there test sewing a few models. At the time I took if for granted, and I was a mit miffed at the fact that I felt the new model i question felt a bit flimsy and plasticy compared to my old rather plain Bernina. I thought it was me who didn't get on with the new technology.

So it's a fact they all are to be oiled, just by a professional not the average user?

Now I know there are very nice brand new ones too, but it's so easy to get talked into all kinds of things when you sort of don't know that many models. I'm still very limited when it comes to what I have experience with hands on.

ArchaicArcane

To be fair, almost all of the models are -mostly- screwed together but under the arm and the inside of the pillar (the throat side) are usually clipped. The thicker the pillar - usually on embroidery machines and the big quilting domestics (i.e. not long arm machines - which are basically overgrown modern versions of vintage machines) - the further I have to wrap my arms (losing leverage) and the harder the plastic is to compress.

The reason it's a pet peeve for us service people is that when the manual says "Your machine does not require oil" people think "YEAH!! I don't have to take it to those service shysters!" Then they run the @!#@ out of them and never clean the lint out of them and then surprise surprise, the machine "fails", and they bring it in where we spend 30 minutes getting the impacted lint out just to SEE the inner workings of the machines. Also - when oiling - not all parts are oiled anymore. Yes, some "joints" have special washers, etc to provide lubrication and "slip", some "joints" are plastic or nylon - so no dinosaur oil required or wanted there. There are other spots though that still need care, plus the obligatory de-linting. I regularly find lint and thread in the motor area, as well as stuff that shouldn't be stuck to the circuit boards, etc. We also run the on-board diagnostics to find errors that the user might not be detecting, or things that are out of spec and adjust (ie calibrating swing, testing pulse motors, etc). This is over and above the regular mechanical checks/adjustments.

It should read that it does not need to be oiled between annual servicing appointments.

It should also have in big bold print that failure to delint your machine between cleanings may void your warranty. When the lint packs up and starts wicking oil and grease away from bearings and gears and causes premature wear, it's abuse. I've stopped going to bat for warranty for people who repeatedly do this to their machines. I show them how to remove plates and get in there. I'm not technically part of your cleaning staff, I'm a technician!

Today I had an "emergency" call - I don't work Saturdays but made an exception because I knew this gal was under a very tight deadline. "Not feeding fabric" - The lint was so impacted that it was lifting the throat plate when the dogs went up. On a machine that had a screwed down throat plate this could have been an even bigger "failure" - a possible "seizing" when the dogs couldn't lift anymore. As it was, Pfaffs have some "give" and just basically put themselves into darning mode by lifting the plate with each dog rise.

She was here watching me diagnose it - so when I saw the plate lifting when I turned the handwheel, I showed her. "Oh! You've been felting!" I said... "No, only quilting... this machine doesn't felt..."

Oh yes it does. I showed her what happened and what she had to do to stop it happening again. She told me she's never removed the throat plate. Ever. Since she got the machine. Or had it serviced.

I sent her home with an un-serviced machine - just fixed the immediate problem after I extracted a promise from her that she would bring me the machine next week when she was finished her project

ArchaicArcane

Ahem... and to put us back on topic, I consider my probably mid 90s Pfaff German built mechanical machine to be very close to vintage and will likely call it vintage when I feel it's crossed that line - despite the plastic it has in it - because it's still one of the best workhorses I have in the house and it does more than most of the "modern" machines I service can do as far as heavier fabrics. It's far more capable than a lot of the 70s and 80s machines that are "vintage" right now.

Cari-in-Oly

Tammi the issue of having (non vintage) machines serviced has been a hot topic on another group I belong to. A long time Pfaff tech told us that North America(US and Canada) is the only place where people aren't being taught to service their own machines when they buy them because we've built a whole new industry of paying someone to do what we should be doing ourselves.
The new Janome stand alone embroidery machine has several pages of instructions on how to open the machine and clean/oil where it needs it. This, and several conversations with this tech has given me the confidence to go a little deeper into one of my Janomes and try to figure out an occasional issue it has.

Cari

Mickey2

What do you do with plastic and nylon gears then? Is it telfon spray, teflon dry lube of some sort or just leave them alone? There are indications plastic gears can benefit from being lubricated, and I think they used a type of oil with teflon in the test I read about; (less friction and wear). I don't want to do anything very wrong.

When these 15, 30 or 40 year old plastic wonders turn up, I usually go for a DIY clean up and see if they still stitch and run fine. I haven't bothered with electronic boards yet, having had a few attempts at apple and windows portable computers that never really was worth the effort.

ArchaicArcane

Cari, I think it goes both ways - I would teach people to maintain their machines if they wanted to learn but most don't want to learn. Excuses I've heard are: "afraid of the technology", "not so mechanical", "would break something", "not smart enough", "no time", "don't want to" and many others. And there's NO way that some of these machines are friendly enough to be able to expect the average user to get into them. Some of them are darned hard to get all the way into.

It's something I think users SHOULD be doing. It's part of taking responsibility for your machine.

I also think that someone who maintains their machine will be more likely to tell me something more than "It's not working right" when it does need to come in for something, and they're more likely to take better care of it in general. I'd certainly see less lint popping up like a djinn out of a bottle when I take the throat plates off!!

I do think though that some service people need to be more honest and willing to educate. Some of the things I hear being charged for and that the service technician won't tell them what they did... that breeds distrust - not unlike auto mechanics. That said, DH works at a car dealership and the number of people who misdiagnose the problems with their vehicles and come in and order all the wrong parts is staggering. "I need an engine fuse, my check engine light is on" is my favorite recent one.

Try this site: http://www.janomeservicevideos.com/ It's likely not got the newer machines on it but a lot of the Janome machines (and Kenmore) are built pretty similarly. It has a bunch for the 350E.

I think the MC350E was one that had videos on some basic oiling as well on the video that came with it. I appreciated that. I think you should try to tackle some of the issues. Just take pics and maybe see if you can be-friend a service center who will sell you parts if you need them. The supplier I use only has parts for older models so my goal this coming year is to befriend one of the shops in town who services what I do and see if I can work out getting the very few parts I tend to need that I can't get otherwise.

ArchaicArcane

You mean after I stop muttering and obsessively checking for cracks? A fairly light coat of synthetic grease shouldn't hurt them. Typically we suggest not oiling or greasing nylon or plastic because dino oil/grease or other organic oils/greases may attack the nylon and plastic. Synthetic though is supposed to be benign to plastic and nylon. I use Super Lube which is like the Tri Flow Lube with PTFE, I put it in a syringe and dispense it like we do on the vintage machine gears - maybe a little lighter. I just haven't found the TF grease in Canada for a reasonable price yet. I usually take a look at the state the gears came in from the factory - if there's evidence they were lubed, I lube. If not, I often leave them because depending on the location of them they can pick up a LOT of lint and the grease will just hold it to the gears. That said, SPO suggests the "best grease money can buy" (note the WalMart brand wheel bearing grease...) I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that. I think this is the video: http://www.sewingpartsonline.com/blo...machines-gears

One thing to keep in mind with the electronic machines is that sometimes when "one of the boards" has been diagnosed as a problem - it could be a fuse. I bought a lot of "parts" machines from the Singer store before it closed here and that was written on one of them. An Athena 2001 I think. I had 2 of those machines and managed to get one working when I found the fuse that didn't look like a fuse (it was inline with some module and was wrapped so it wasn't immediately obvious) and removed it from the other machine and put it in that one.