Originally Posted by Charlee
Originally Posted by kwendt
Hey all my best VSMS buddies....
Now that I'm finally recovering from what turned out to be Pnuemonia, and can sort of think straight, for hours at a time <smile!>; I can jump back into the fray here.
I have an old tensioner question. I have an ancient, 1912 Singer 115/15 treadle head that I've cleaned up and put back together. My first treadle is almost ready to test drive!!! Whoo hoo! But I'm not sure if I have to replace the two tensioner disks or not.
This is the extremely basic, extremely plain tensioner. Has two disks, a washer thing, a spiral spring, a divided post and a thumb nut (and a funky wire/spring thingy for a thread guide/back tensioner that I cannot tell if it's bent out of shape or not.) That's it.
The two plated tension disks where the thread passes between are worn. They are discolored, but not rusted, pitted, burred or lined... just discolored on the highest part of the bevel curve of each disk. About the size of a lifesaver, 1/3" or so. Is this sort of thing indicative of 'worn out-needing to be replaced'? or is this just cosmetic, and it'll be fine?
(I have no other tensioner that's even CLOSE in age, wear or style. Can't compare. Pictures didn't come out.)
Help? Opinions? Jokes?
You should be fine with them as long as they aren't worn through and aren't catching/cutting your thread.
My 15 clone has that same tensioner, and the wire is really funky...seems to be too long, and catches the thread coming down from the takeup arm if I'm not careful. I still need to oil this machine more to get it moving smoother, but that wire is really annoying!! I tried bending it up out of the way some and that helped.