After I arrived home with Lenore, I couldn't resist trying to fix her right away. I thought to myself, "It's probably just a simple thread jam. Five minutes of work and she'll be ready for cleaning and oil!"
Wrong.
I started by pulling out whatever bits of thread I could see in the bobbin area. When I went to see the machine, I had had to force the bobbin case out of the machine by breaking the thread that tangled in the hook area. The needle was stuck halfway down, which I needed to deal with, too.
I removed the needle plate and pulled out some more thread. There was also some lint under there and I cleared that out with tweezers. Once I pulled out the visible thread, I was able to get the hand wheel to move!
I could see that there was still some thread caught behind the bobbin case base (there were wisps sticking out) so I decided to try to remove the base. I have done that before, on my 1938 Featherweight that arrived from Goodwill with a thread jam. I removed the gib screw and tried to swing out the gib... no luck. Why wasn't it moving? Was it stuck? I tried to move it but didn't want to risk breaking it. I put the gib screw back in and posted a message on the Yahoo group about Featherweights asking for advice.
I decided I wasn't going to solve that particular issue that night, so I moved on to the face plate. The screw was hard to budge but it eventually moved. Nothing behind the face plate looked unusual, just more lint. I removed the belt, as it was split in two places and definitely wasn't going to be usable.
My shopping list was already forming: a new belt, new rubber "feet" for the bottom of the machine, and an LED bulb.
I still needed to remove the drip pan to see what the underside looked like.
The next day, I would discover exactly what a hassle it was going to be to clear that thread jam.
I started by pulling out whatever bits of thread I could see in the bobbin area. When I went to see the machine, I had had to force the bobbin case out of the machine by breaking the thread that tangled in the hook area. The needle was stuck halfway down, which I needed to deal with, too.
I removed the needle plate and pulled out some more thread. There was also some lint under there and I cleared that out with tweezers. Once I pulled out the visible thread, I was able to get the hand wheel to move!
I could see that there was still some thread caught behind the bobbin case base (there were wisps sticking out) so I decided to try to remove the base. I have done that before, on my 1938 Featherweight that arrived from Goodwill with a thread jam. I removed the gib screw and tried to swing out the gib... no luck. Why wasn't it moving? Was it stuck? I tried to move it but didn't want to risk breaking it. I put the gib screw back in and posted a message on the Yahoo group about Featherweights asking for advice.
I decided I wasn't going to solve that particular issue that night, so I moved on to the face plate. The screw was hard to budge but it eventually moved. Nothing behind the face plate looked unusual, just more lint. I removed the belt, as it was split in two places and definitely wasn't going to be usable.
My shopping list was already forming: a new belt, new rubber "feet" for the bottom of the machine, and an LED bulb.
I still needed to remove the drip pan to see what the underside looked like.
The next day, I would discover exactly what a hassle it was going to be to clear that thread jam.
No comments:
Post a Comment