Originally Posted by
sdhaevrsi
I imagine that your local OSMGs aren't happy with your abilities, folks. Especially since you can make excellent videos, Tammi, and so many of you are willing to help us newbies.
Yeah, I imagine I'm ticking off OSMG's the world over with those videos.
I added 3 more this week on the Slant-O-Matic machines - upper tension, lower tension and an obscure problem with the stitch selectors. I can see some of the OSMG boiling from here...
Originally Posted by
miriam
Well, it is very hard to get anybody to work on the old machines. Most of it is clean up inside and out. Then getting the fine points. You can see 200 - 300 machines and never see some of the stuff we help people fix on here. Most sewing repairmen only see the new machines these days - it's where the money is but it is a different world. If you were to take a machine in for repairs they want an arm and a leg to fix one. It is no wonder people think a machine is worth a bunch of money when they go to sell one - that is if they had it worked on. Pure and simple you can get a machine fairly cheap - if you pay to fix it the machine was no longer a cheap machine no matter what had to be done. If you work on it and it works - it is no longer a cheap machine. People don't know the difference between one that needs work and one that has been thoroughly cleaned and adjusted and in working order. Some of the little shops try to charge high prices for the machines and for the repairs but people are reluctant to buy the old machines at a high price. Then some of the repairmen WON'T work on the older machines or they charge so much they think they can sell you a new machine. OK so that leaves working on a machine yourself doesn't it? If you aren't all that mechanical it might be worth spending money on having someone do it for you. It truly would be on the older machines. They are so much simpler and more reliable.
The main reason that the newer machines are easier/faster to service is that so much stuff is plastic - practically no maintenance - it's all designed to wear out. That said, the $12,000 embroidery machine I serviced today was more packed up with lint than any vintage machine I've -EVER- serviced. People seem to think they don't need to clean the new machines - likely because the manual says they don't need oil - which seems to translate to no de-linting, no oil and no servicing ever. No wonder the machines wear out. All that lint wicks the oil and grease out of everywhere, then the lint impacts in its place and things grind to a halt.
These older machines take a little more time but will outlast their original owners, me and probably my kids and grandkids with a little care.
I've told people who've bought the $80 walmart specials that I could probably make the machine work better with a good going over but no one wants to pay to service a new machine that cost them as much as a service. Problem is a crap machine sets a new sewist up to think they have no talent whatsoever for sewing when it's the machine that's at fault.
Had a FW in for service today at the shop I sub-contract to. Talked to the owner and she said the service was her last attempt with this machine and that she'd seen a $150 machine at Costco she was sorely tempted by. I told her that the featherweight would serve her better than the most expensive machine Costco had for sale and outlast it many times over.