Trouble with longarm bobbins
 

I was quilting along without any problems, but now, the bobbin tension on my Janome Artistic is super tight when I use an aluminum bobbin (that came with the machine and that I wound myself) but yet is fine when I use the prewound bobbins from Superior threads. It's almost like the aluminum bobbin no longer fits the bobbin case (had trouble getting it out). Any ideas on what this could be? Has anyone else had a problem like this? I've cleaned out lint and can't see anything wrong.

Thanks in advance,
Julie

Could there possibly be to much thread on the bobbin and it is not fitting proper!y?

Hi Texas Sunshine,

I would have thought that was the case, but I was able to do 2 rows of a pantograph before this happened. Now the bobbin is only about 2/3 full. I'm totally baffled. I'm thinking I may order a new bobbin case.

Did you try your other aluminum bobbins? If they all stick, maybe something did happen to your bobbin case (did you drop it by any chance?). The prewounds might be more forgiving since they're cardboard. If it's only the one bobbin, maybe it got dropped and is slightly out of round.

If it works OK with prewounds, sounds like the case is OK. Did you drop the bobbin? If the bobbin is out of round, it will not spin evenly. Also, if the bobbin was not wound evenly it will do the same thing. I would try another bobbin.

Sometimes if you drop a bobbin it will ruin it, make it go out of round, making it hard to get in our out and will cause tension problems.

Sometimes when winding a bobbin, it will warp. Especially with aluminium bobbins. Slowing down the winding speed helps.

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions. Even empty, the aluminum bobbin feels like a tight fit. I'm pretty sure that I dropped the bobbin case and 'injured' it.