Some Longarm ladies put machine oil on their thread before quilting. The tension should pull most of it off the thread as you sew stitches. I have found that oiling the tension will help when the thread is shredding, rather than the entire cone. One time, it was just that cone of thread. The same color, a different cone, worked fine. One time, the thread was shredding because it was catching on a burr on the cone itself. I finally started watching the thread and I saw it. I changed the placement of the thread guide and solved the problem.

I have done bunches of bunches of changes. So far, changing the needle (AGAIN) and adjusting tension and changing the type/brand of thread is "semi" helping. I have slowed down my stitches as well.

I did turn the needle a scant hair to the side as suggested, and that seems to help a little, too. Now I'm only shredding every 2 rows or so, instead of every few inches.

sunshine was right....it does shred much more quickly going right to left than up/down or left to right. Weird!

You're making progress .... my thoughts are to keep adjusting the tension!


As a hint ... when you make the changes, do only one thing at a time and try it out.
I know, it seems like a slow way to go at it.
But if you do several things together, you really do not know what works or does not.
It could be one of the four worked, but the other three cancelled the "right" one out.
Keep track of what you have done as you go along.

When you get it figured out, make notes as to what worked, then the next time you can start with all the same settings.

Good Luck ....

Thanks Prism99 for that great video link. Bookmarked that one.

I have a Gammill and was taught that "the machine doesn't like going backwards"(left to right). I avoid any long stretches of left to right and never do a whole row that way.

Also check the threading of your machine. When I've had problems with breaking(not shredding so much) threads and I've checked everything(I think) suddenly I'll remember to go through the threading step by step and frequently find it has gone astray at some point.

sometimes the needle just needs a little adjustment

I have also tried changing thread brand. last week I had that problem using black thread. I changed to Aurifil and it worked better, unfortunately I ran out of thread with one row left, and had to finish with another thread.

I don't know but sometimes I also consider the batting to be the problem or also the quilts that are pieced on top and bottom.

Shredded thread no more
 

Try this before you give up. We have a Janome Artistic Quilter 18x8 DX which is basically a Tin Lizzie (like yours) but we feel this solution would work on a lot of different brands. When we received our machine there was no hop in the hopping foot, and I was too inexperienced to know. After a lot of frustration, trial and error the hopping foot was adjusted and we have been sewing relatively problem free (thank the Lord). First, use your owners manual and find out where you adjust the height of the hop. On our machine, we had to remove a plastic cover and loosen a bolt to accomplish this. We set ours at 3 mm gap at the top of the hop( needle up a high as it will go). This measurement is taken between the foot and plate. Then we set the gap between the foot and plate when the needle is all the way down. This you adjust at the foot itself. We used a dime (not sure of the specific#) to gauge this gap. A Gammill technician on youtube used 3 business cards to set this gap on his machine. You would not believe the difference after this has been set. We hope this helps and can sympathize with you, but don't give up.

Here are the video titles from Gammill Quilting on youtube that give you the general idea of what I was trying to explain : "Hopping Foot Height Adjustment" and also "Hopping Foot Stroke Adjustment". Let us know how you make out.

Just a thought, are you sure you have your needle installed correctly? Scarf goes to the back and long groove in the front.