Singer 354B bobbin question
 

Hello everyone,


Yesterday I popped in the local sewing shop to buy some thread and they had vintage serviced SM for sale... Long story short I came home with a thread pool and a Singer 354B Starlet (aka Genie in the US)


(photo from the internet as I have battery problems on my phone and cannot take pictures at the moment)
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The machine had one plastic bobbin inside (already full of thread) so the lady at the sewing shop sold me some "no brand" plastic class 66 bobbins.
Here is my problem:
When I sew with the bobbin that came with the machine everything's fine but when I use some of the bobbins I bought the top seam is all loopy (so I guess a problem with the bobbin thread...)
So, was I sold the wrong type of bobbin (they look similar to the naked eye)? Do I need "Apollo-style" bobbins?
Or are my no-brand bobbins just rubbish?
I found a user manual online mentioning #172336 bobbins but Singer seems to have changed the reference numbers (or discontinued that reference number...)
In a nutshell, I'm lost! Can anybody help?

My friend owned the Genie version and I did sew a project with it many years ago. It was a nice machine.

First I would bring the bobbins and machine back to the shop to try to resolve the problem. The no brand bobbins "might" be the problem.

That being said I don't think it would matter if the bobbin was a no brand or Singer. There may be a slight difference in specs of the new bobbin that is not noticeable to the naked eye. This may be no problem for the modern machine but it seems to be for vintage and antiques machines. I too had the same problem as you when I tried a new Singer brand bobbin in my 66 treadle. It works fine with the old bobbins. Since I have several old bobbins I didn't mess around with tension to try to resolve the problem.

Thank you pennycandy. I will take the machine back to the shop and then try some other class 66 bobbins...
That's a shame really because the machine does a very pretty stitch when I use the original bobbin 😊

Well, things got sorted out... I found a company that sold bobbins with the same reference number than the one mentioned on the user manual (#172336) online for a pittance.
I received them and they work wonders. When compared with the "no-brand" bobbins I bought before, the 172336 ones are slightly less curved and slightly lower and wider. They sit snugly inside the Apollo bobbin case and therefore the bobbin thread tension is adequate.

Great! Thank you for getting back and I'm glad that it works well for your machine.


Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.