When I was teaching I had a principal that told me that once you turn forty, everything becomes maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. That may be more true of us as we age, but it is not true of your sewing machine, serger, or long arm machine which should always receive regular maintenance. You would not think of just driving your car for thousands upon thousands of miles without changing the oil, rotating the tires or buying new ones, and of course, having the plugs changed. Your car’s efficiency and virtual life continue to go down hill without attention to maintenance. You sewing machine, serger, and long arm machine also need regular and planned maintenance to keep them in tip top shape and working their best. Here are a few tips to help you maintain your machines.
Cleaning, oiling and changing the needle are the three maintenance tasks of all types of sewing machines.
Keeping Your Machines Working Their Best
Regularly clean the dust and lint from all areas of the machine that you can get at, both above and below the throat plate. Areas that typically build up a lot of dust and lint are in and below the feed dogs and in the bobbin and hook area. Remove the throat plate and open all covers you can and use a brush to remove as much of the lint as you can reach, then use canned air to gently blow the rest up and out of hidden areas. All sewing projects create lint, especially quilting projects. Batting and cotton thread are especially linty – even polyester batting produces lint.
Nearly all sewing machines, all sergers and long arm machines need to be oiled where metal parts are moving past each other. Check your machine manual to find the locations and frequency for oiling. Especially when sewing or quilting projects that create a lot of lint, your machine will need oiling more frequently than with normal sewing. Caution, do not over oil. In other words, two drops is not better than one drop. Follow the directions. Do oil on a regular basis to prevent unnecessary wear and premature aging of your equipment.
If you own a long arm, make sure you put a drop of oil in the hook area every few bobbins (check your manual). I caused my long arm to pull a thread into the hook and jam because of lack of oil. Although I was going through the process of oiling the hook every few bobbins, I only later discovered that the opening on my needle oiler was plugged and I really was not oiling. Trying to remove the thread jammed in the hook caused the hook to go out of timing. The lack of oil caused quite a few hours of down time, taking the machine hook assembly apart, my husband’s help to take the machine apart and retime the machine, etc. I am much more observant now when oiling to make sure there really is a drop of oil.
Change the needle on a regular basis. On a domestic machine, the needle should be changed with every large project. Long arm needles are much larger and sturdier, however, they also need to be changed regularly. Needles do dull from sewing and quilting, can develop burrs, and do develop curves, especially if you sew over pins. Needles are not expensive and poor, damaged needles can cause a number of problems including poor stitch quality. Use the correct needle for your project for best results.
After cleaning and oiling, test sew, make tension adjustments and you are good to go.
Interestingly, sewing and quilting machines and sergers do not wear out with age or even with use. They more likely become difficult to use, inefficient, and do not perform as they should because they have not been maintained. Make maintenance of your sewing equipment a priority and your machines will serve you well for many, many years.
