Cecilia S.

Hi Group,

Firstly, thanks again for those who helped advise me on my timing issue. I am so thrilled to have it done!

Now, on my Great Blue White 15 clone (avatar photo) there are two thread guides on the beautiful chrome plate. You can see how it thread, using the back (or left, if you are looking right at the plate) one. The right/front one, I have not been able to figure out what it is there for. It actually does not seem to be for bobbin winding, though someone once suggested that. (The bobbin winding occurs on the bottom right of the machine, where there is a spool pin.

I would so love to know what this extra thread guide is for. There is only one spool pin on the machine, but could somehow be for sewing with two top threads? I don't think so, because the thread would have no comfy way of getting to the back tension area without getting caught by the thread take up lever.

I am very puzzled. Ideas?

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J Miller

Cecilia,

I have wound my bobbins by putting the thread on the pin on the bed and had fits with it. Then I ran the thread from the top pin, through the front thread guide on the face plate, down to the bobbin winder tensioner and up to the bobbin and it wound much better.
I believe the second guide is for bobbin winding. I'm not sure, but I don't think the early 15s had the pin on the bed.

Joe

Cecilia S.

Thanks! I will try it. That makes the most sense, for I cannot otherwise fathom what it is there for. Thanks again.

Rodney

My Rodney machine has it too. Do real 15s have the second guide?
Rodney

nanna-up-north

My 15 doesn't have that 2nd thread guide.

foufymaus

My 15-91 doesn't have the second guide either.

Mrs. SewNSew

Nope, mine doesn't either, but I like the explanation of it as the spool winding guide.

**I am new to having so many different machines so pardon me if I am a goof here but isn't the thread on the tension guide supposed to go around and up and catch behind that L-shaped piece atop the tension piece? Beat me with a stick if I am wrong on this.

foufymaus

here's the threading diagram for the 15-91
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But if you look at the manual for HA-1 Clone 15's you can see the extra notch.
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foufymaus

Mwahaha!! figured it out. It's for bobbin winding. Per this 1944 Singer manual: http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollect.../NMAHTEX/0203/

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Cecilia S.

Our combined experienced has just solved it:

Some 15s do not have it; they use the bobbin winding business such as what is at the lower right of my machine.

However, some 15s do have it; they appear (by foufy's diagram) to be the kind that have an older-fashioned bobbin winder, mechanism remnant of the long shuttle bobbin winders. For these, the diagram shown, with the extra plate notch, all adds up.

The clone probably just cloned this notch for aesthetics. And the Singers which have it, that is probably because they just used up stock plates even when the notch became redundant. That is just me being a sleuth. What do you guys think?

(And Joe gets the best of both eras, by using both guides for spool wrapping )

Foufymaus, great diagram.

Christy, When I run my stitcher, the L shaped bar to which you refer seems not to serve a tension purpose, but rather as a stop-bar for the tensioning spring so that it only goes up so far. Keeping the thread behind it and out of the way of the flapping tension spring makes the most natural sense as I watch it work, and if I put it in front, it does not make sense. The machine stitches beautifully this way. However, if there is something I am missing, please correct me; I am no expert!