So you have a nice old Minnesota ~B~ or another machine that uses the Davis Long Needle or the Boye #10.
You have exactly the one needle that came in the machine and the tip of that is worn off. What to do?
Well, in the last 6 months I've been using several substitute needles for machines whose original needles are either unobtainium or rairium.
Rairium = really hard to get
Unobtainium = can't find 'em to save your soul
You want to sew with your baby, so what do you do?
Well, here's the story of Minerva and her happy ending.
I got Minerva, a Minnesota Model ~B~ from forum member bdshafer last March. Brought her home and proceeded to get started cleaning. Ewwww, I had to clean eons and millenniums worth of old varnished oil and gunk from inside and outside of her.
Once that was done I proceeded to try and sew something. But ... sadly I didn't realize the needle clamp screw wasn't tight enough and the needle came out and was snapped in two when it was caught by the shuttle and feed dogs. OUCH!
mizkaki came to my rescue with a package of MTx190 size 12 needles. The original needles are flat shank but these are round. Other than that they are the same length with a scarf and full length thread grove on the side.
I tried the needles and they worked very well. But I prefer size 14 to 16 depending on what I'm doing. And I wanted to see just how big I could go with these substitute needles before I ran out of room.
The reason for this is the round shank needles sit farther to the left than the OEM needles do and I was concerned about the larger sizes having interference problems with the needle plate and the needle slot underneath.
Forum member jlhmnj came to my rescue with a package of MTx190s in size 14s. Those fit and functioned very well. Being a bit impatient I asked him if he could get me some in size 16 and 18 to try. Yep he did.
They came today and I've tried them both. There is very little room left when the size 18 needle is in, but there was no problems with it at all.
I also found out Minerva may not sew fast, but she'll go through eight (8) layers of denim from a standing start.
Nice tension too.
So even though the Boye #10 or Davis Long needles may not be exactly unobtainium, they are hard enough to get that the MTx190s are a viable substitute. If you have a machine that needs this size needle, give them a try.
Besides the forum members I mentioned above you can find these needles at:
jimtaly itemforever ---
http://stores.ebay.com/jimtalyinc
And I'm sure other places as well.
Give these needles a try and make your old machines happy again.
Joe