A friend has a Juki TL 98E that she has hooked up to a Handi Quilter. The needle keeps breaking- does anyone have experience with this machine and can tell us why the needles keep breaking? We were trying to quilt today and used up a whole little package of six needles in about four hours. Is this normal?

I would check the tension.

quilt might be too tight on the frame and hand machine coordination might be too fast for the stitching moving too fast/slow.

I have a Juki TL98Q on a HandiQuilter frame. I have never had a problem with the needles breaking. Make sure the feed dogs are down. Make sure the bed of the machine and rails are not touching. It could also be a timing problem. Is this a new machine? Also, make sure the throat plate is set properly. The needle could be striking the plate. That's all I can think of right now. Hope it helps.

Thanks, everyone, so I have to check the tension, yes, the feed dogs are down. It is a used machine but was just in the shop recently getting a tune-up. I think the needle may be grazing the throat plate as we keep finding little metal shavings. I am sorry, I just remembered that little fact...

This may sound silly, but if it is a new to your friend machine be sure the needle is in the correct way. On some of these machines the needle is put in a little differently than normal.

I think it will only go in one way, with the flat side on the right... thanks for thinking. I am going to go and tackle it again tomorrow...

I had the same problem with my Juki on a Grace frame. It happened when I moved the machine too fast. I had to remind myself to slow down. Hard to do though. I just got a stitch regulator and it seems to have fixed that problem. Now I can sew as fast as I want.

I had the same problem with my Juki on a Grace frame. It happened when I moved the machine too fast. I had to remind myself to slow down. Hard to do though. I just got a stitch regulator and it seems to have fixed that problem. Now I can sew as fast as I want.

Thanks, Little Hud. I will try slowing down... It is hard, but I will try it. How much was a stitch regulator?

my friend has a juki set up and we also had lots of broken needles when we started. we found we were forcing the thing to go too fast. however, if you are finding metal shavings, i would check further on the throat plate issue.

I discovered that someone else had left the feed dogs up. She owns Mary's Quilt Shop in Snohomish, so who knows who has been messing with it. But yes, there were metal shavings. I was trying to go faster because the two women who taught us how to use it said to speed it up once you get going, so maybe the speed, the needle size, and the feed dogs being up were all the problems. I am going to try changing the tension next time I get to work on it...

We got the correct needles and it is humming along quite nicely now. No more metal shavings and no more broken anything. Thanks, everyone!!!