More Good Stuff
It's really hard to convince the Powers That Be at work to buy new equipment sometimes...so when one of our sewing machines kinda crapped out on us, I had a hard time talking myself into putting up the fight to get it fixed or replaced. My assistant had her mom's sewing machine--an older Bernina--that she brought in so we'd have enough machines to keep everyone busy, and it has become our favorite machine (a lot of the older machines were just better built...the new ones are nice, if you can afford to go high-end and want all the bells and whistles...but we just need something reliable that does the basics...)
So, I've been prowling thrift stores, looking for machines. I tried a Singer that someone gave me, originally...but something broke on it before I even got a chance to really use it. Tried another old thrift store machine, which kind of worked, but the tension springs on it were kind of messed up so threading it was a pain. Picked up a cheap Elna machine that's almost identical to the one that broke on us in the first place...and it's not bad. It's just not particularly good, either...
These have all been tried over the past couple of years. I'd basically given up on it...and then, a couple of days ago, I found another one. An older White...from back when they made all-metal bodies for the machines. Only has about six or seven different stitch options, which is about three more than we typically use. And it was only $15...so I decided to gamble on it.
Last night, I was frustrated. The gamble wasn't paying off, something was messed up and it was tangling the thread in the bobbin. Poked around online, saw a lot of forum threads talking about that problem or similar ones and a lot of suggestions for what to do...but nobody coming back to the forum to say, "So, this is what I did and it fixed the problem!" At $15, I didn't want to put the money into paying someone to take a look at it, especially if it was something I could fix myself (and I am at least moderately mechanically inclined, so...)
Went to work today with thoughts of trying to reset the timing on it...which could be a really arduous process, since all I had were descriptions of machines that weren't even made by the same company to use as guides. But in the process of trying to determine what needed to be tweaked which way for the timing adjustment, I discovered a much simpler solution...adjusting the needle height. Loosen one screw, slide a metal bar a fraction of an inch, and tighten the screw again...and, suddenly, the thing has gone from not even being able to put three stitches together to sewing beautiful, even stitches.
Today, I felt like a genius. *grin*