Last weekend I spent three days at Ray White's Sewing Machine Repair Workshop learning the basics of sewing machine repair. There were eleven of us with two different goals - half wanted to open sewing machine repair businesses and the rest of us just wanted to know how to repair our antique/vintage sewing machines.
I started out working on my Bernina Nova (aka Bernina 900) sewing machine because I knew it already was in fairly good condition. At first I was a little intimidated by opening up the cover to look at the "guts" of it. But by the middle of the second day I was feeling pretty confident that I wasn't going to hurt it as long as I went slowly. For those of you who are wondering who that little doll is, she's Mia Rose who's visiting me from Connecticut as part of the Doll Street Dreamers' travel doll project.
We went through all the steps of adjusting timing, tension, replacing worn or broken gears if needed and basically how to logically think through the mechanics of a sewing machine. He even touched on information about sergers and a little bit about foot controls not to mention teaching us how sewing machines work in general.
By the middle of the third day I had fixed my Elna Grasshopper (yes, I finally broke down and found one of them from ebay last year ... pictures to follow later). Yay!!! I was so happy that I accomplished that because I never really thought of myself as being mechanical. But low and behold I had managed to get something working and working well. Just wait until you see the little teeny tiny stitches that it does. I think that it'll be a great machine for doll-making!
With just a few hours remaining in the workshop, I took out another ebay find - a green Singer 185J machine that wasn't working at all. I couldn't even turn the wheel because it was frozen by all the gummed works. Well after just 20 minutes of cleaning and lubricating it I was able to get it turning and got it to work. I still have to balance the thread tension but once again I was thrilled with that accomplishment.
So, the most important thing that I learned is that you really must clean and lubricate your sewing machine often. Sewing machine oil will gum up and turn into varnish if it's allowed to sit still for long periods of time. Instead of sewing machine oil we used a lubricant that was originally designed for bicycles called Tri-Flow. It has a little teflon in it and won't gum up. It also will clean and break down the old varnish. This is how I was able to get the little 185J working again.
It was an amazing class! Ray was a fount of information with over 45 years of experience and so willing to share his knowledge with everyone. If you have any interest in learning how to repair sewing machines then this is the class to take. You can also find lots of information from a group of helpful people at the wefixit yahoo group. Our hostess was also quite knowledgeable and has an amazing sewing machine collection. She's a true collector and showed me some of her antique hand cranks.
