Yes, we (me and my husband) decided to see if we could use our Singer 500E (Rocketeer) to free-motion quilt. It was piecing just fine yesterday as I worked on piecing a block for my BOM quilt,
but this morning, it just would not have anything to do with FMQ. After just a few stitches, the top thread would fray and break.
(Note: I just remove the feed dogs for FMQ and put them back for piecing - it's only 2 screws....)
After perusing many sites and forums (including this one), we FINALLY got it working beautifully :-) (Really, it was my husband!) (Thanks, honey, for spending half of Father's Day tinkering with it!)
So this post is for you if you have had maddening tension/top thread-breaking issues with your 400-500 Slant shank machine. This is what worked for us (after HOURS of tinkering!) and I hope these tips can help out with your vintage slant-shank as well:
1) Feed Dogs - can't drop 'em (for my 500E anyway), so just remove them (two screws and they come right out)
2) Presser bar tension - set to 0 (inside the little compartment on my 500E)
3) Thread:
a) Use
50 wt Aurifil 100% cotton on
top AND bobbin
b)
Set tension to 3-ish and adjust the bobbin tension accordingly so that at "3" on the thread tension, all is copacetic
(Yes, I know the manuals say NOT to fiddle with the bobbin tension, but with these old machines, you might have to....just 'cause...)
c) Create a horizontal spool pin (we bent some wire and screwed it into the top - see it my video link below) -
THIS WAS THE CRITICAL FIX in our case - later slant-shank machines (like my mom's Touch N Sew) have the spool pin mounted horizontally)
4) Needle - 90/14 (After we got it working with this needle,
I actually tried reverting to an 80/12 and NOPE - thread started breaking all over the place!
So yes, needle size matters!
5) Foot - We actually use the
Westalee Slant Shank ruler foot(more on this below if it wouldn't fit your machine...) and
lower it as far as it will go.
This WILL work with a quilt sandwich and leave the foot lightly skimming across the top of the sandwich.
NOTE: We made a video showing how beautifully the Rocketeer is now able to FMQ - here is the YouTube link:
Free Motion Quilting on a Singer 500E (Rocketeer)
(Honestly, I was about to give up on it entirely and just devote it to piecing.....started eyeing the Sparrow 20 auctions on eBay even....but my husband would not give up on it - thanks again, honey!)
What was the ACTUAL problem causing our thread to break all the time, you ask? Well, we FINALLY realized that when the thread broke, we actually HEARD it break and the sound seemed to be coming from the TOP of the machine. Then I remembered someone, somewhere, mentioning that if a spool is wound in a criss-cross fashion, it should be mounted horizontally to even out the tension coming off the spool. Once we created our very own horizontal spool pin (ahem, length of wire bent 90 degrees and screwed into the top)...well, that was "it." The thing started stitching like a dream, no matter how slow/fast or straight/curved we asked it to go. Putting a larger needle in also helped (90/14 instead of the original 80/12).
** A Note about the Westalee Slant-Shank Ruler Foot **
If you go to Amazon and read the reviews, you will see MANY that say it doesn't fit. And neither did the one we received - at first. However, if you look closely, you will see the surfaces of the foot are ROUGH - as if it was never "finished" after manufacturing (yes, I have already complained, LOUDLY, to Westalee about their lack of quality control) Anyway, we took a small metal file to it, filing the inner surface of the screw slot as well as the inner surfaces for the "clamp" that fits around the presser bar (which only took a few minutes), and voila' it now fits perfectly. All of which is to say that a) as customers, we should NOT have to do this! but b) the Westalee slant shank ruler seems to be the only option for these old machines so c) you can either send it back for a refund or, with just a few minutes of "sweat-equity" get it working ;-)
I hope this was helpful, at least esoterically for the small community of us who actually want to FMQ on old slant-shanks!
In case you are wondering WHY I even bother to TRY with my 500E, well, let's just say we (me and DH) are very fond of these sturdy old machines with ACTUAL METAL GEARS and love how well they stitch, once you get them set up right. Yes, I miss having "needle-down" and "speed regulator" settings on modern machines, but honestly, I'm kind of used to sewing on old machines, so as long as I can get consistently beautiful stitches on a machine that won't break or throw tension fits, I'm happy :-)
Good luck with your slant shank - always start by cleaning and checking everything for any burrs or rough spots that may be catching your thread - but once you've done all that, try the setup we used and see how it goes. We figured that, even if we never did get it to work, at least we learned a LOT about the inner workings of our Rocketeer, and if only for that reason, the exercise was worth it to us...
- Jen
PS Once again, here is the link to the YouTube Video we made (please don't judge - we are not professional YouTubers!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVR17es4ZxI