Some break-thru's last night, I'm super excited.
I called my sewing machine guy yesterday to see if he would be able to squeak my two machines in for a tune-up and we got on the subject of my Dressmaker and the stitch length issue. He gave me some advice, to open the machine completely up and check on the condition of the mechanism, chances were high that it was just gummed up and frozen in place, a few squirts of DW-40 and move the knob back and forth should break things up and get it moving properly. If I was able to fix it, then I'd end up saving some money.
I have to admit, if I have to break into a machine deeper than just cleaning it out with a vacuum and our air compressor, then oil it up and put it back together, I get nervous (am I the only one?), so I waited for several hours before I took the plunge. Got out my screwdrivers, WD, brushes, pulled the old gal out of the cabinet and got to work.
To make a long story short, when I was moving the mechanism up and down to see where I was going to shoot the DW into, I saw several bits of dirt fly out of it. I kept going, moved the mechanism up and down and started turning the knob back and forth. Even more dirt came out and the knob was suddenly moving in and out of the housing like it should. I grabbed a piece of paper and manually fed it through the machine, the stitch length was much, much better.
As luck would have it, I'm out of DW-40 but plan to pick some up in the morning, I've got stitch lengths of 6 per inch, 8 per inch, 12 per inch and 21 per inch. I'm thinking a good shot of DW into the mechanism, let it hang out and do its job should free it up and I'll get all the stitch lengths back. Also discovered while I was inside that the belt is fine, I found bits of lint underneath the mechanism to wind the bobbin that wasn't allowing the mechanism to fully disengage. As soon as I cleaned that out, the slipping belt completely stopped.
I closed her back up and put her back in the cabinet, ran a few pieces of fabric through it and stitched up some pinwheels and four squares, it was nice to be able to stitch them up without 25-30 stitches an inch. I'd almost lay money that a dirt dauber got up into the machine and tried to make one of their tubes, realized it was way too small and abandoned it, it was actual dirt that was coming out, and the previous owner did say that she had it stored up in her garage for quite some time before she pulled it out and put it in her garage sale.