I have heard that you should never pull your thread back out of the tension disks when you are changing thread on your sewing machine, be it DSM or longarm. Is this true and what is the reason? I don't want to harm my machines, although I have been doing this with my Viking Rose ever since we bought it new in the 90's and have no problems with it after all these years.

Have the same thing with my new Bernina 830. Wastes a little thread, but much better than ruining an expensive machine. Also doing it now on my other machines.

mltquilt

I've also read somewhere that you should pull the upper thread forward through the needle, and not backwards.
But I can't find the website now where I saw it.

Personally I think if a machine is so delicate you can't pull the thread out backwards you probably don't want it. I've been pulling the thread out backwards on my Pfaff for over 10 years. When the presser foot is up, the tension disks are open and the thread is loose.

I think you shouldn't pull the thread out of the machine without raising the pressure foot lever. If that is up it shouldn't really matter how you get the thread out!

Pulling it backwards is supposed to leave lint in the tension disks, but I've been doing it for over 20 years on my Viking with no problems at all and none on the newer Bernina either. I clean between the discs whenever I clean the bobbin area, no big deal. It's just lint, not a tension issue.

ETA: Definitely raise the foot first. (do people really unthread with the foot down?)

I've been doing this for decades with various machines - Singer; White; Viking and never had an issue with any of them. Then again, I don't think it's even possible with the presser foot down. That would be the only issue I could think of as there would be much more pressure on the tension discs and the thread would break leaving the possibility of tiny pieces of thread that you might not be able to see/clean out. Otherwise I agree with whomever it was that said if a machine is that delicate, do you really want it????

I read the same thing, so I clip the thread and pull it through the needle.

If your thread is so linty it leaves lint in the tension disks when you pull it thru backwards with the tension disks open it's probably too linty to be using forward!!

The only machines I know of that you really, really shouldn't pull the thread out backwards are sergers and it's not because of lint in the tension disks. It's because they can be very hard to get threaded in the right order. And if a serger isn't threaded in the exact right order it will not sew.

But if you pull it back out. dose this not help to pull any lint that was cared in by the thread back out?