Carol's Quilts

I noticed the other day that my walking foot makes a squeaky noise when it's running. There is no noise when using other feet. Do you think it would be OK to lubricate it with sewing machine oil? My machine is a never-oil machine, so I haven't used oil in a long time.

justflyingin

My husband is a mechanic. He says there is no such thing as a machine that never needs oil. :)

If it has moving metal parts, it will need some sort of lubrication eventually.

But as to the walking foot squeaking. If it didn't used to squeak and now squeaks, I'd oil it.

BrendaY

Maybe you need a new walking foot? Things do wear out, don't they?

Carol's Quilts

I know - always thought the same thing about machines - moving parts should be oiled. However, the machine has no holes or exposed parts anywhere for you to drop a little oil in, and the extensive owner's manual makes no reference whatever to oiling the machine except to specifically say not to (it's a Janome). The machine is about 8 years old and still runs as quietly and as smoothly as when it was new. So far, so good, I guess.

Probably a drop or so of oil in the walking foot won't hurt. Thanks for the advice.

Carol's Quilts

The foot is only 3 months old and I've only used it for SID on small baby quilts for Quilts for Kids, so it had better NOT be worn out. It cost me $60, so I hope it lasts for a long time.

DeneK

My walking foot squeaks too. I thought it might be the arm that rubs against the shaft that connects to the machine. Mine has always squeaks from the first time I used it. I will watch this thread to see if oiling the walking foot helps.

Debbie B

I wore a walking foot out. I was told that there is a little spring of sorts inside there & it can wear out or sometimes it will get lint inside it. I wouldn't think that a tiny drop of oil would hurt it, but I'd make sure that I sewed on some scrap fabrics after oiling it to make sure that the oil would not get on anything that I was making.

Jingle

My darning foot that I use for the FMQ was squeaking and made the fabric hard to move under it, I oiled it and it got okay. I think a machine grease may work better.

plainjane

I had a squeaky walking foot, and it ended up having a thread caught in it somewhere. I had taken the machine in for other repairs and the squeak was driving me crazy. Oil wouldn't hurt, but find that thread!

justflyingin

I have a Janome also (a Horizon) and there is no word of oiling. However, after a couple hundred hours of sewing, my husband, sitting in the other room, said, "Honey...are you sure that thing doesn't need oiling...sounds like it does." I said, "I don't know, the book doesn't say anything about oiling."

Hmm...So, he took the sewing machine oil and found places where he thought it could use it. And yes, it helped how ti sounded.