Originally Posted by novicequiltergrandma

I learned to sew on my mom's FW. I don't think she ever cleaned or oiled it (I know she never taught me to do it) and it worked great for over 40 yrs. In fact, I sewed on that machine for many yrs after she gave it to me and it never saw a drop of oil (I had no idea I needed to oil it). My husband recently took it apart and cleaned it up and it is humming along beautifully again. These machines were built to be indestructable. IMHO, your mom could be right about never cleaning it and it worked just fine!