ArchaicArcane, I was on there this week too for my 2 301's. I got one from GWI and know I need to clean the tension control's on them both but have been afraid to try until now. Thank You so much for doing this.

I got it!!! YEAH!!! Thanks to everyone, especially Miriam, for helping me with this mystery. I watched the YouTube video by the Archaic and the Arcane that deals with the tensioner with the Slant-O-Matic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UttHpnQy0xk I was overlooking one, very small detail that she explained. The spring has a small hook at the end of the coil that needs to catch onto the gear when reassembling. It's so easy to miss.

AA does some very good videos, BTW. This one showed every detail. I just want to know how she keeps such beautiful nails while working on sewing machines all day...LOL.

Now off to watch her video on testing the tension. Thanks everyone!

~ Cindy

Yippie - it is sssoooooooooo good when you win one. I knew it had to be something very simple unless you were missing pieces.

Tammi has really cool videos. I always learn things from her videos, too. All it takes is to miss one little thing. And likely she will have it on her video. Tammi, paint a little face on your left hand and we could have extra entertainment... just making fun of you... but don't worry I did love your video - keep them coming.

Many thanks to you AA. You do some wonderful videos! More on the 403A would be awesome! I dearly love my Slant-O-Matic 403A and now she's up and running again...spinnin' like a a top! I'm so happy! :D

~ Cindy

I love the 403, 503, 603 and the 328 machines. They are very simple to use and take care of. They are usually pretty reliable. AND you do get great stitches.

I've had this machine since I was seventeen years old, when I left home and landed in Lihue, Kauai. The first thing I did was to go down to the Singer store in town and buy this machine for $75, which was a lot of money back then. It was the best investment I ever made. I made curtains and bed covers for my apartment with it out of Hawaiian bark cloth. Over the years, I've made all of my clothes with it, along with slip covers for my furniture, (and made more when the kids wrecked them,) dog beds, pillows, quilts, bikinis, purses, etc. I even made my dau's wedding dress...oh yeah...I made MY wedding dress with it too! I certainly wasn't going to let a little thing like a tension problem discourage me from getting it fixed right.

I'd recommend the 403A to anyone looking to buy a vintage machine. They just go and go. Plus, they have a strong motor and tons of stitches to play with. Thanks everyone for helping me get it back in service.

~ Cindy

Cindy,
I used some kind of 400 series in Home Ec for a semester - the next semester the school traded all their machines in on some Touch and Sews. I never could make one wind a bobbin let alone make it sew. I made my project at home on the FW. ggggrrrrr it wasn't until years later my son found a 401G in the trash that I found the 400 series again. My sister dared me to clean up the 401G so I did - I also fell in love/hate with it. Somebody - me - Egora cleaned it up then used 3 in 1 oil on it and it set up like concrete. It took me about a year to get the thing to work. I had no manual or any info how to use or repair that machine. At one point I took it to the OSMG for a cord. He showed me other slant-o-matic machines - his favorite was the 403, too. When a 403 came up on CL I bought it - I think I drove 3 hours each way, too. I fell in love with that one - a whole lot less junk inside the machine. Very simple to use and very easy to maintain - at some point I bought another one and gave it to my best friend. I bought a 503 for my DIL and she fell in love with it and sewed a lot with it. I have come to terms with the Touch and Sew after all these years. Sort of like Green Eggs and Ham - I do like the T & Ss - just not as much as my 403.

Those videos are great. Thank you so much for taking the time to make them. Side note- the home depot and I am sure others crry what look like giant plastic ties or twist-ums. The large green ones can be fashioned to make a nice tripod for our phones

Windblown - when you do service your tension make sure that you pay attention to the note on the video description. I forgot to mention in the video that the shorter tensioners (FW and 301 for instance) are set a little differently at the very end. Where I set the bigger tensioners so the post is flush at about 2 to 3, the featherweights tend to be flush closer to full tight - typically these days I've been setting them around 8 - 9.

Cindy! All it seems to take is one little thing with these tensioners. They're very well designed but the strenuously object to the smallest mistake in assembly. Ha! I think the only reason my nails were intact is because I had been doing more quilting on Lucey lately than I've been working on machines. Normally they're full of grease and many are broken.

Lol! I remember watching the video to see if there were any really bad flubs and thinking "It's a darn thing I moved my coffee to the right of the machine where I couldn't hit it!" ;)

What else do we need up there for videos? I've got the camstack stuff - unsticking and fixing the finger problem, tension top and bottom... ;) The basic premise of timing is the same on them as the 201 video... I'm trying to think of what else goes wrong with them.

I caught someone with a can of 3in1 oil in their featherweight case this week. Because I wouldn't be there when the machine was picked up (it was a machine at the shop I subcontract to), I left a sticky that it was a no no.

My first machine was a mashup of the worst of the T&S features mixed with some interesting other buggy features. I don't know that I'll ever really come to terms with the T&S machines. Like a bad marriage we're better of not even as friends but as people who change countries to get away from each other. ;)

You are welcome HelenAnn! The biggest problem I have with the filming is that the machines are unfriendly to a stationary shoot for a lot of the angles we need to see but with the turntable and the professional tripod that I bought for my film camera back in the day with an adapter to hold the phone whenever possible, I'm getting by for the moment. This time around though for some reason I was hooking the tripod on the lamp and I'm convinced the background noise is from my headset (which I use for a microphone) cord rubbing on the tripod. I may have to see if I can find those twist-ums to give me some other options though.

Ladies, another victory for the QB Experts!

Thank you.

Jeanette