Treadle Running
 

DH worked on our best treadle yesterday afternoon. He cleaned and shined all the metal as well as all the moving parts inside the head and underneath. Now it moves as smooth as butter and the stitches are beautiful! All I need to do is practice.

Should the leather cord be unhooked every time or is it ok to leave it hooked up?

The next thing we are going to do is try Glenn's method with linseed oil, denatured alcohol and shellac on the heads of the treadle & feather weight.

Looking forward to seeing pictures. I leave my belt connected all the time. If you have a model that the head can be lowered into the cabinet, or when you need to oil under the bed, there is on some treadles a lever that takes the belt off the fly wheel so you can lift the head.

So you don't need to disconnect, only to tighten after it stretches.

Maybe I need to get after the treadle parts with oil. I've quilted a couple of items but it feels a little cranky.

Once the belt is adjusted properly, ignore it and don't do anything. To manipulate it will cause it to become too lose. They last for 20 years or so, if left alone.

Redmadder, you might want to try taking the faceplate off the head and cleaning everything out well with wd40 then reoiling. That's what we did following the instructions here on the forum and it is so easy to treadle its amazing.

Sewing machine oil, not WD40, for cleaning. If you have to use WD40 to unfreeze something, be sure to clean it out with SM oil. WD40 hardens over time.

We will be sure to oil everywhere we used it.

Keep the faith, slow and easy. Just don't quit. Eventually you will have it like you want it. It will then be your treasure.