Originally Posted by
Vridar
Archaic, you are sew right. My spouse, mother, etc. always said to leave their SM alone, it is set and don't bother it. Recently, I got interest out of necessity and found it's like other things, if one understands the principal there is no mystery and with any complete, clean machine I can make a stitch. Even the principal of threading can be logically understood. However, without the logic any machine will be a challenge. A good straight stitcher will make a good stitch if the upper tension and lower tension are adjusted correctly and the feet feed the material. I use opposite colored threads to get tension adjusted. It hasn't failed yet. There is no mystery, but, I'm not telling anyone. Keeping it to myself and maybe some machines will follow me home like they do other forum members.
Yeah, i've scored some pretty good deals that way. These are also usually the people who say things like "my machine doesn't like x thread", or "my machine only sews y fabric well." Uhm ... no....
I rarely need a threading diagram either, they're really intitive for the most part, once you've seen enough of them even which way the needle goes, and which way to thread the needle.
Often when i sell a machine, i'll explain a bit about tension and sometimes, with some people - the ones who want to learn, i'll teach them how a sewing machine makes a 1000 knots a minute. I rarely have comebacks for tension issues now too