ArchaicArcane

Especially because if You didn't fix it, you know it's coming back at some point.
19 years in I.T. taught me that.

Mrs. SewNSew

That's a great explanation, thank you! That will really stick with me so I can remember to loosen the tension for those extra wide zig zags.

ArchaicArcane

I aim to please. You'll have to let me know how it works out for you.

KenmoreGal2

I am going to cut and paste this entire string into a Word document. There is so much useful information here Tammi. Thank you so much!!

I wish I could attend your class. There is a lot I could learn about tension issues.

miriam

Very informative!
I am very interested in a topic like when is a tension problem NOT really a tension problem. What about the foot pressure adjustment - I've seen people mess around with that... I had a 401 with a spring in the bobbin area adjustment problem. Then there is lint... Bad bobbins. Burrs... All kinds of not tension things can come up

ArchaicArcane

That would make you the 3rd person on the eastern seaboard in 2 months to say they wanted to attend one of my classes. I suppose at some point need to get off my buns and find out what's involved in teaching across the border. I'm glad it's helping you. Tension was my huge stumbling block when I started sewing (though I didn't know it was tension at the time) and I see so many people struggle with it now that I think it's worth doing workshops just about tension.

I sort of alluded to that in my first post but let's cover that now. Fire whatever situations you can think of at me. It will prepare me for the class on Monday and maybe we can hash a few things out here too.

Presser foot presser - if it's too light, the fabric won't feed right - usually stitches will be uneven and will vary between too loose and too tight. If it's too heavy, stitches will probably be too short and likely too loose.

In fact feed problems in general can look like a tension problem.

Technically, a mis-threaded machine or a spool that's catching the thread isn't a "true" tension problem itself but causes a tension problem.

Sergers - lettuce leaf edges sort of look like tension but are actually about feed and can be fixed with setting differential feed differently or if the serger doesn't have DF, sometimes changing the presser foot pressure can fix it.

The clearance adjustments in the 401 style bobbin areas? Definitely. Those look like upper tension problems too. Same with the 99/66 style machines. That's where this post came from a couple of years ago: http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...g-t195869.html

Speaking of bobbins - bad bobbins are definitely an issue but the wrong sized bobbin can do it too. For instance an L bobbin does fit where a class 15 will go and in some cases (especially the horizontal bobbin cases) will work but you may find tension is variable with it. ETA: And a 15 bobbin where an L bobbin belongs will cause all manner of calamity.

Most of the time I find burrs it's because of the symptom of thread shredding but yes, it can cause things that look like tension problems. Of course thread shedding can come from really tight tension too especially when coupled with too small a needle for the thread.

Lint. Yes, a very common reason for many many problems in a machine - under lubrication when the lint wicks oil and to some degree grease away from where it belongs, Skipped stitches when it deflects the thread loop. I don't know if I've ever noticed tension problems because of it but that's probably because the first thing I do is clean out the bobbin area and rebuild both tensioners before I even test sew. There's no reason it wouldn't cause tension problems though.

ArchaicArcane

Bad needles - burrs inside the eye will cause thread to shred and break but sometimes it just snags hard enough to tighten top tension.

Wrong needle for the job will often cause tension problems - too small an eye will cause the upper tension to be too tight. A needle that is wrong for the work can cause extra friction - inhibiting the loop from forming.

miriam

Some where on QB is a discussion of the spool holders, the direction thread flows or not and how that can affect the tension. I had one machine yesterday that wanted a little red felt pad... The thread spool was spinning too much and thread was wrapping around the spindle - havoc with the tension.

ArchaicArcane

I was going to go looking for that discussion here on the QB but KenmoreGal2 got to it first. I've seen that behavior too. I find fast sewing or a lot of fast starts and stops really does it and you're right, the spool pin felt makes a difference. Tiny little things you wouldn't think would matter really do.

The other thing that I find eliminates a lot of problems are thread stands with cross wound threads on machines that only have vertical pins. It's quieter too. I think it's 2 things here - 1. The thread wants to come off the top of the spool with "no" resistance. Yanking a spool around in circles causes some inconsistency and extra drag. Also, the thread stand puts the spool a little further away which gives the thread a little time to "relax" before hitting the tensioner. I know that my embroidery machine became WAY easier to manage once I took the thread off the machine and onto a thread holder.

SteveH

You know that they had a solution for this in the early days of sewing... and it really works well!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]541267[/ATTACH]

Yes, that is a weight on the top of the spool of thread. It is original to the machine