Small spools on a longarms
 

Can you use small spools on a Longarm if you don't have a side spool holder....

I was told not to do this when I purchased my longarm. I purchased the spool attachment and added it to my machine to be able to do this.

If the thread is not a decorative thread it should be just fine. Make sure the rim of the spool does not have any nicks or cuts in it that the thread will get caught. I use regular spools on my hq16 all the time.

Small spools and cone threads are wound onto the spool/cone differently. the spools have to be horizontal in order for the thread to come off the spool correctly. I was taught this when I got my longarm. I have a Gammill.

I don't know what can/will happen if you try to pull thread off a spool vertically.

You could try something like this...the screw driver fix... http://rhondabracey.com/?s=Bobbin+holder

I have used the small spools of Glide on my Gammill and have not had a problem. I did not know I wasn't suppose to use the small ones. They may gave told me at my class but there was so much info, I may have missed this. Anyway, the Glide small spools were not a problem.

The only problem I've had using small spools on my long arm is you run your of thread pretty fast - I had a customer who insisted on a particular thread we could only find on small spool, it took 7 of them to quilt the quilt.... Was quite an expensive way to go, along with being a pain to have to re- thread the machine every time I was in a good flow quilting.... Now I only use spools/cones with enough thread to complete the quilting