KarenR

HELP!
I have an old singer sewing machine 1021. The students use it for sewing- but all of a sudden it seems that no matter what the tension it gathers the material.

I have vacuumed, oiled, and new needle. Still gathers. I'm thinking it has to do with the tension.

Can someone help me.

I can not bring it in and get it fixed- $50 each time it needs cleaning is out of my budget.

Thanks for your help.

minibarn

Hopefully someone else can offer some advice but have you unthreaded and rethreaded the top and bobbin? Make sure the thread is feeding out of the bobbin properly. Is the needle in correctly? Clean the tension disks if you are able. Does your needle match the fabric you are sewing on? Make sure the thread is coming of the spool properly too. I once had a problem and my top thread had gotten caught in the little grove on the thread spool.

Just a few things I would check.

Jp

miriam

Did you try changing out the needle?

SteveH

Most of the time I have had this issue it was a needle that the tip was "hooked". It happens when the needle gets hit and the very tiniest portion of the tip of the needle folds over.

KarenR

Changed the needle twice. Will clean the tension this weekend.

miriam

I worked on a pristine looking Universal 15 clone last night - it was doing all kinds of puckers. I'm not exactly sure what I did to fix it but I did a lot to that machine. The stitch length seemed rather short. Then I noticed the feed dogs were not up high enough. I researched how to raise them and got them up. I'm not sure if it puckered before that or not but it puckered, it hopped weird and broke thread. I tinkered around some more then decided to drop the feed dogs a hair. Well they were tricky but I got them where I thought they should go. Then it was breaking thread but not hopping or puckering. I looked for burrs on the hook - just for giggles I changed it out - it must have been ok. I noticed that the needle bar was kind of turned with the needle screw kind of forward so I turned it a hair. It now sews beautifully. Nice machine. That was not really a novice job. If simple things don't fix it take it somewhere and have it looked at unless you are comfortable getting into the guts or aren't worried that you make it worse. Here was a helpful manual: http://autonopedia.org/crafts-and-te...machine-repair

barny

Are the students putting the thread around and into the tension spring. Sometimes that gets caught and causes the thread to not move.