Thread: Mercury Electric Dial-O-Matic, picture heavy

Originally Posted by miriam

Is the dial not turning? Or is it a lever? What is going on? I have one that the dial and the reverse button froze up. I had to get way in there and soak the inside with Triflow - I must have oiled it every day for a week and gave up on it. I went back a month later and it works fine. The stuff just has to get in to the right places. On mine, there is a thing in there shaped like a ramp like thing - it was gunky.

Nothing is frozen and dial turns well. Too well! The dial turns and turns, something is too loose in my opinion. It is not engaging something inside enough to change the stitch length, the reverse lever works OK. I took some pics but will have to take some more as they did not turn out well enough to post. I will take the machine outside to have better light for pics and will post pics.

I did some more fiddling with the Stitch Length Selector this afternoon. There is some kind screw in the center of the dial that sits behind the set screw in the center of the dial. By taking a small screwdriver and turning the center screw I was able to move that pointy end that juts out of the back. It is the pointy thing that engages with the mechanism inside and adjusts the stitch length. The first stitches were six to an inch, nowI am now getting a respectable 10 stitches to an inch and am not going to mess with it any more.

I also had to spend some time adjusting the upper tension. That was a chore because the upper tension dial is not numbered. I also decided that the first bobbin case that I tried was not going to defeat me either. I played with it's tension screw. Voila, both upper and lower tensions are balanced and providing a perfect stitch.

Caroline, it is gunked up inside... I can see it.