The silk setting is halfway between up and down. Darn-silk-norm=down-halfway-up. I'll use the silk setting(usually with a piece of tissue paper underneath) when I'm sewing super thin or fragile stuff.

Cari

Typically puckering is tension related, yes but if fabric were to be pulled "strangely", I could see how it could contribute.

I had my industrial machine misbehave recently - the stitch length was all over the place, the tension was all over the place.

It was threaded right, recently serviced and test sewn and stitch length hadn't changed. When I looked closer though, the presser foot pressure was practically non-existent (I must have done that for the last project done on it - a sandbag weight for DH's ankle). I tightened it down to about "half" - for sewing a hem on some jeans - and all of my feed and tension problems disappeared. Weirdest thing but I learned that day that they're related more than I had thought.

My situation was the opposite, so I would think if anything, the presser foot pressure on a puckered seam - as long as everything else is right - could do this if it was massively too tight. Now, having said that, I don't know that most vintage machines have the adjustment range to be massively too tight...

This is really close to how my FWs are set for piecing - but I agree, it's far to general for practical use - as a starting point though as mentioned, it's not a bad spot to start from on a FW because of its relatively narrow usage.

The other machine that can do weird things is a slant-o-magic and others with that drop in bobbin. There is a little place where the thread passes through when it goes around the bobbin - it's a small space and there is a spring holding that. If it is maladjusted the stitches can be way off. You can tell it is off because the thread will pull through the bobbin area funny when it passes that split.if you watch and see the thread not passing around the bobbin area easy and smooth - if it goes jerky like - it needs adjustment. That will affect the stitches. People blame tension for everything.

Nuh uh! They also blame "timing" for tons too! ;) You should see one of the Long arm groups I belong to - it's the go to instead of the last resort and nobody checks it - they just go ahead and try to re-time. (i.e. call the manufacturer and get walked through it, call a tech, or watch a video, etc.)

I just had a domestic here that was "skipping stitches" - the only thing I could find "wrong" was the massive dust Easter bunny (like "makes Big Bird look like a chickadee" big!). Cleared that and otherwise serviced it, changed the needle threaded it up and it was fine.

Ah yes timing, that's because greedy OSMG gets more money from stupid.... Spread a rumor that machines go out of timing like the drop of a hat chu-ching..... Charge more for timing than for lint removal... Who would doubt when the machine does weird stuff.

To be fair, I have seen a few machines that do lose their time quite easily - they've all been the Costco/Walmart level fairly new machines though and it's not specific to those 2 brands either.

On a vintage machine, it's rare to throw the time, I agree. With the newer low budget machines, their needlebars are softer than the needle sometimes and the way the hook drive mechanism is built, you get one try then the nylon has flexed too much to be strong enough anymore and the machine is garbage. :(

I don't consider the people who believe the OSMG to be stupid. Trusting to a fault maybe but if everyone could service their own machines, there'd be no bargain machines out there and not a lot of opportunity for people like me to do something other than IT. ;)

Didn't say OSMG stupid... Customers maybe...

I didn't say the OSMG was stupid either. I said that trusting an OSMG wasn't stupid but perhaps a little naive in some cases. Customers bring us business because they have a different skill set than we do. That's why we take things to other people - auto mechanics, computer people, etc. Specialization doesn't make the other person stupid.

Albert Einstein wrote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Other people can climb the heck out of a tree but can't swim worth a darn....