J Miller

The Singer 9W-7 requires a 127x1 needle. A flat shank needle with one long groove opposite the flat and no shank, just a small 1/4" grooved area at the eye. Obsolete, hard to find, expensive when you do find them.
They fit in the machine flat to the left, and thread right to left.

The substitute needle is the industrial MY1014B, a round shank needle with two thread grooves. One long one up to the shank on the side opposite the scarf and a shorter one up nearly to the shank on the scarf side.

Now the Schmetz MY1014Bs that I have come with a huge scarf.
The Singer 127x1 needles have either no scarf or a small one.
The Organ MY1014B needles have a much smaller scarf than the Schmetz.

With me so far ......?

OK, I was sewing with my 9W-7 making a quilted cover for the machine.
The needle I was using was a Schmetz MY1014B, size 14.
The thread I was using was C&C Machine Quilting and Crafts thread in the 1,200 yd cross wound spool.
To piece the cover I used white which came in Size #50 or 30 wt. I honestly cannot tell the difference between these thread sizes if there is any.
I had the thread mounted on the machine and off the machine on a large spool holder and it made no difference with feeding.

When I was finished piecing the top I had to piece the fleece for the skirt. I use the same C&C thread in blue mounted off the machine on the large spool holder.

Still with me .............?

I had severe thread breakage with the Schmetz size 14 needle and the blue C&C Machine Quilting and Crafts thread. It also tangled while winding the bobbin twice so bad I had to cut the thread off of the bobbins. But that was corrected by winding the bobbin with the Sidewinder.

My wife said check the needle. I did, needle was good. Problem did not stop.

I changed thread to C&C (we have a ton of the stuff, might as well use it) All Purpose in the 400 yd spool. This thread was visibly finer than the other thread and there was no problem with breakage at all.

Fleece piecing done I switched to a variegated orange / white thread on a Maxi-Lock 3,000 yd spool. The size is Tex-27 what ever that is.


I started quilting. My top is pieced from various cotton scraps. The bottom, fleece.
Within the first few stitches I started having thread breakage again. With my frustration level at critical over load I used a few not so well chosen expletives that got my wife's attention. She said check the needle again. I took it out again, used the jewelers loop and that needle is just fine.

She said, try a different needle anyway. OK, so I dug into my very limited supply of needles and grabbed an original Singer marked 127-1 needle and put it in.

Since then not one single thread breakage.

Now, I'm finally getting to the meat of this post.

The needles I have for this machine are:

Simanco: 127x1 size 18
Singer: 127x1 size 16 GY
Schmetz: MY 1014B size 14
Organ: MY1014B size 14
Schmetz: MY1014B size 12

The 127 needle I put in was a size 16, the MY1014B that came out was size 14.

I've said all that to ask this .......

1: Did the Schmetz needle having a large scarf, when the originals did not, cause or contribute to the breakage?

2: On a needle such as the Schmetz and Organ that have two long grooves and a scarf, which way do you orient the needle to be most like the original that has one long groove and no scarf?

3: Was the thread breakage simply because the thread I was using was too big for the size 14 needle?


I hope this makes sense and wasn't too overly complicated. I am curious about this and trying to learn. Especially on how to orient the MY1014 needles. (I have several machines that use substitute needles.)

I can't take pics of these needles cos my camera, as good as it is, just don't have enough Macro to do it.

Joe