Cecilia S.

Hi Everyone,

Now that my glorious old Anker Phoenix 429 has had its bobbin assembly surgery (major arterial plaque removal in the rotary hook, and, as per CD Thayer Rags, the kidneys ), I am now sewing practice pieces with it, and setting up the tension etc. Wow, WHAT A MACHINE! So powerful, so slow if you want, and FAST if you want. And such a glorious sound it makes; a really quiet vibration.

For those who may be interested, here was the bobbin surgery: http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...t247803-4.html


The problem I am having now is in the tension, I think. See photo below; every so often, the right hand stitch of the zigzag (I guess that would be the zag. Hee hee) pulls tighter than the others, and as you can see, when using a different colour thread on bobbin and top, this creates a big problem aesthetically.

Can you help me figure out why this happens? It does not correlate to a pause or a slow down or a speed up in sewing; it happens at random in the midst of a steady sewing tempo. I have also of course recently cleaned the -entire- hook area and re-timed it, and as well have cleaned the tensions assembly thoroughly. The assembly was dealt with in this thread: http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...e-t222400.html

Any insights would be appreciated. I have banged out 20 or so rows about six inches long of zigzag, and it seems to happen on average once every 20 zag stitches or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

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J Miller

Well, my first thought was your top tension is a bit too tight. My wife said the same thing and added that perhaps there a burr or something irregular that's causing a tension spike.

Just our thoughts.

Joe

SteveH

I'd bet it is a burr... Needle or needle plate (check top and bottom)

Cecilia S.

Thank you Joe and Mrs Joe and Steve.

I will check for burrs. This might make sense as it happens only occasionally, right?

Will do that tomorrow and will report back. Many thanks again!

miriam

Besides burrs, dried up oil - could be on a thread guide, inside the upper tension or bobbin tension - anywhere along the thread path.

Cecilia S.

HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Complete success. This thing is stitching like a maniac now! I wish you could see/hear him go!!!!

You guys were right; the needle plate was a bit burred up; it looked as though from needles hitting the plate over time (when breaking, I suppose). I sanded nicely with 600 wet dry, and bingo. I have just sewn about three feet of perfect zig zag stitches, some of them at roughly 90 miles an hour :-) Hee hee.

Now I must figure out what to actually sew, besides random rows of speedy stitches :-)

Thank you again all of you who helped me resuscitate this machine, bit by bit. I have learned a lot which I will take with me to other machines; I also hope these many posts on this machine were of interest/instruction to others.

-C.

J Miller

Glad you got all fixed up and sewing. I hate pock marked needle plates. I've smoothed down several of them.

If they are that bad they should be replaced if new ones are available. I haven't done that yet.


Joe