featherweight 221 repair
 

Can anyone suggest a safe place to take featherweight 221 for repair. I live in Crete IL 60417--south suburb of Chicago. I do know of a place The Sewing Store in Joliet IL but not sure about an antique machine repair. Love this site ! Please help!

What is wrong with it?

If she just needs a cleaning that is something you can do yourself. Let us know what the problem is and I assure you that we can likely help you fix her yourself and save you a lot of money.

I agree, these old machines are the easiest to take care of yourself. I think the hardest is getting the courage to try!
Singer is really the nicest because they numbered everything. If anything happens you can look on the internet and find it with no problem.
My 83 year old mother and I fixed a 99 that had been in her garage for years and was locked up it took from about 3pm to 5am but we got it done. Now I have it in my collection and will always remember what a fabulous time we had together.

Give it a shot you will get more then enough help from the people on the board! Fear Not!

Yep just ask us we will help you for sure.

Perhaps I could get some help also. My little darling is frozen at this moment. It was sitting next to my serger and I acidentally hit the FW foot pedal and it ran for a few seconds making a huge bird nest. I cleaned most of it out but a piece of thread got caught behind the bobbin case base. I've read the directions in the manual and was able to do most of the steps. When I got to the final step I couldn't figure out how to take out the bobbin case base. Of course that little piece of thread is still firmly stuck and the machine won't budge. Anyone know exactly which piece you grab to extract it and get to that little devil???

I sent you a pm about a repair shop in the Joliet area.

I would have to look at the machine to know how to fix that one. I have a big Consew walking foot that does get thread wrapped around the shaft - to take it off I have to re-time the machine getting it back together. So what I do is put some oil on the thread. Then I get some lock together tweezers and grab hold of the thread and rock it back and forth if it will move - if not I rock the thread - it doesn't get the thread out every time but some times that works. There may be a service manual on line with more information - sometimes that helps. It can be very frustrating.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'm not sure what is wrong with it yet - just bought it! I will give it a good cleaning and see what I find. I did find actual repair manuals online - so with your encouragement I think I'll try.

My repairman fixes Featherweights. When I had this problem (when I bought it), he said all he had to do was take the bottom off of the machine and to reach the thread to pull it out. Just lay it down where the bottom faces you to remove it.