Hi everyone,
We just had a guild meeting last month where our local sewing machine/fabric store came and gave us a general maintenance presentation on top loading and side loading bobbin machines and sergers. Basic cleaning and a few pointers when you get into trouble with your machines. Also advise for those with the newer machines with computers in them.
As to an answer to your question about servicing - they recommended a yearly cleaning, tension adjustment and tune up which runs about $50. Our instructor shared some really funny and some horror stories on machines that had come in for servicing. Some of these machines had been used almost constanting for years before they just stopped working and they wondered why. In cleaning the machine they found all sorts of stuff/lint/threads - unbelievable. Imagine a ball of lint the size of your fist found inside one machine that had been used for over 20 years without every being cleaned. Wonder it was still working at all. I have 4 different machines for different applications and they all go in at different times of the year but each of them go in at least once a year. One of them is now over 50 years old and still goes through six layers of denim without missing a stitch.