Originally Posted by BoJangles
Originally Posted by Glenn
I will keep it for the camper but my Davis, redeye and lotus( there is nothing like sewing with a 66-1 Singer treadle). I have to keep the FW since a dear friend gave to me so I will give it a chance. It does not have much power oh it will piece and such but that is about all. It is light and travels well but I am not impressed. I have yet to see what people see in them. Glenn
Glenn, have you taken the machine apart and really deep cleaned her? I took a cleaning/maintenance FW class last week and there were a couple machines that did not perform well. Both of them had lint/thread stuck in all kinds of places, plus they had dried up gunk - probably old grease - in the gears. We took the wheel off, cleaned any thread that had gotten caught in there, oiled and put it back on. Really oiled all the oil holes and moving parts and re-greased the gears. You will need to take off the face plate and the bottom cover. Also, remove the top cover and really get in there and clean clean clean! You will need to look all around the bobbin hook race with a flashlight - one of the machines had a 5 -6 inch piece of thread wrapped around where it could not be seen except with a flashlight and really hunting - I bet, you'll fix the slow moving problem. My three FW's all sew really nicely and move quite fast. It is amazing where thread gets caught on these little machines -- they will still run -- but, not happily until cleaned, oiled, greased! The FW is actually a pretty amazing machine for being so little. Our instructor had one she had been sewing tons of clothes with since she was 9 years old -- she is probably in her 60's now!
Nancy
Nancy thanks for the info on FW. I cleaned it again and all the gears are shiny clean and greased and oil as the manual said. She is running better and sews faster but not much. She does have a nice stitch. Not the power expected so cleaned the motor and and installed new brushes and greased in the two locations as instructed by the manual. The motor just hums along with no problem now and sews great but the power has not increased. I will use it to piece it will do fine for that. I guess it is the man in me you know --more power!!! My wife ask how much power to I need to piece? My answer I want the thing to climb a mountain. :lol: If the motors did not cost so much I would replace it and keep this one for spare. Thank you again for the good info, now I know. Glenn