ThayerRags

I was up early and the electrical service went out all over town here at 7 this morning and stayed out until noon. When it first went out, I put the coffee percolator and a big pot of water on the gas range (we always start a pot of spaghetti when it’s cold and the power is out), dug out a deck of playing cards, and played a few hands of solitaire while sipping on my coffee. My wife stayed in bed for some extra snoozing time before getting up to a cold house but a fairly warm kitchen. Neither one of us felt like doing any sewing, so I drug out another hand crank that I hadn’t fiddled with for a long time.

It’s my Grandmother’s old hand crank phonograph and records that I used to play with as a small child. Watching the snowflakes coming down with the instrumental sound of “Little Brown Jug” playing on the old wind-up phonograph sure brought back some memories. Add in the smell of home-made spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove along with fresh perked coffee, and it was a very pleasant morning in spite of not having electricity. We only got through about half of the old recordings that included waltzes and foxtrots, and even found a couple of Hawaiian tunes.

We didn’t get any sewing done, but that’s ok. I’m full of spaghetti and thinking a nap may be in order....

CD in Oklahoma

miriam

I cleaned up on a top tension New Home. It is clean except for the nose - I'm a little jittery about taking it apart. Who knows what will fall out. Any suggestions? After that I need to know how to thread it up and test sew it. Are there some free on line manuals? It was kind of dirty and stuck up and now turns very freely. Someone converted it from treadle to electric then the Amish guy nipped the wires. I guess it will have to hand turn.
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ArchaicArcane

Is there any chance that when the fabric starts to feed backward, it pulls the bobbin thread a little differently under the spring where there's a little less tension? It's the only thing I can come up with, and it's a long shot. I'm assuming you cleaned the thread path on the bobbin case. Spring's not damaged at all?

Glenn

Miriam I sent the manual and no nothing will fall out of the nose. Very simple to clean behind the face plate.

miriam

Mystery solved. Plastic bobbin. Need I say more. I put in an old bobbin and it works just fine. Prior, I removed the bobbin tension and clean it just to make sure that wasn't going to be a problem - pristine anyway. The upper tension was in nice shape, too. That clone makes nice long basting stitches.

Then DH figured out how to put a 'Singer' HC on the New Home. This one was re-furbed some time ago. The cord was cut by the Amish guy. The machine has been cleaned except for the nose area and the attachment holder is stuck like glue. I'll need a manual so I can figure out how it threads. When they re-furbed the New Home they drilled two holes to hold the motor. One hole lined up perfectly with the HC attachment. The other hole was just above it. To keep the attachment from fidgeting he put a screw with the head sticking out a little bit in the hole just above the one we put the attachment on. It turns nice - now to make it sew.

bplipschitz

Hey Christy,

I'm finding out that these finely machined German workhorses are very particular, because they were made to such exacting tolerances. The correct needle, matched with the appropriately sized thread, with the exact needle/bobbin separation distances *all* have an impact, but even more so on a Pfaff.

Keep at it -- it helps to have a very regimented approach to these things, and when they get frustrating, time for some tea/liquor/DWTS or whatever calms one down.

Good luck!

miriam

UGH. I have a 401 on the bench. I got it mostly cleaned up - took a while - always does on those. Then I thought I'd take apart the tension and make sure it was ok. WELL. It was NOT ok. SO I dug out a derelict T&S as a donor. Got the post out and it has a problem, too. SO I dug another derelict out of the garage and the set screw is stuck - I poured a little oil down in there and I'm hoping after supper it will come out. It makes me wonder - the rest of it is gone... It might have taken a while to figure those out if I hadn't pulled them out.
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ArchaicArcane

Wow, Miriam how do you get all the fun machines? I've had seized machines, but other than that one 401, none have been seized more than a few hours with just a little TriFLow love.

I'm pretty sure the first post in your photo is salvageable, I've fixed worse. The second one though... how does that happen? What do people do? Sit on these machines?

carolynjo

When I made costumes for the local theatre, I worked on a touch and sew and it was a very good machine to work with. We were able to find a second one for the theatre.

miriam

Tammi, I don't know how I get such doozy machines. I think people must try to 'fix' them with a sledge hammer or something. I've seen some good Touch and Sew machines and some I hated. I think it depends on condition and model. I have one around here that is a real joy to use. I think a lot of it is whether or not the bobbin winder works right. If it doesn't the first thing to do is get a different bobbin and check it for flaws before using it.