As you put it all back together remember sewing machine oil is measured in _drops_. Using the correct amount can help reduce the varnish and shellac from recurring. Those running surfaces can get hot and bake on the extra oil. A little bit goes a long way.
I may be slow... But I sure am gimpy.
"Bless you child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it; that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other way."
Mrs. Loftus to Huck Finn
We Don't Sew... We Make Gear! video series
Important thread injector guidelines especially for Newbies
Bobbin Tension - A Personal Viewpoint
I'm only planning on a couple drops where stated in the book. I'll be using tri-flow, and I think a little of that goes even further than sewing oil. Once I get it back together and running I will gauge from that point if additional is needed.Originally Posted by Ramblinrev
On a side note, I think I may have saved the wicks. They might need a bit more work but they were at least not stiff anymore, and starting to turn white again. Thanks for that cleaning tip.
I'll probably be ordering the drive and bobbin rubber today. Probably a few other things too.
Today I picked up the stuff I needed to rewire the control. I put the motor back together, the grease wicks turned out awesome, and used some 600 grit to polish the commutator. Rewiring was a bit tricky because the wire gauges were slightly bigger than the old ones and there isn't a lot of space in that control box. But after inspecting the old wires, it needed to be done, they were all dried and cracking.
I have to look at the light assembly next time it's on the table. If that needs to be done I'll have to break out the soldering iron possibly. That looked like the wires were soldered between the switch and the light fixture, then hooked to the motor connector with ring terminals.
Clamped the motor down to the table, plugged the control in and the thing ran like a champ. No funny smells like before, rant smoothly through all ranges of the switch, not sluggish like before. I'd call the rewire a success.
Picked up a small bottle of evapo-rust, hopefully it works as good as the youtube vids, I have some tools that could use a rust stripping.
So hopefully I'll be able to get the main chassis parts cleaned and lubed this week. I have the drive wheel on the way. Then fire this thing up and see it actually fuse thread for the first time in 2 decades.
Nice. The evapo-rust can be used several times before it is done. I poured enough to cover the first parts I cleaned into a plastic container with a tight fitting lid and have used it on several items since then.
Looks good. Old wire can certainly be hazardous.
Forgot to mention...an underwriters knot is typically used for strain relief when attaching wires although it doesn't look like there is room to use it in that speed control.
There were these strange strain relief things on the old wires. What they did with the old setup, guessing rewired at some point before my mom got the machine, was they striped back the main casing so the individual wires were what was coming through the grommets. Then they had some sort of soft thin cover over those wires. Then had these clips squeezed on the end. I tried something similar with the shrink I had, but was less than successful. Figured when I put it back in the cabinet, I would use a couple those screw down cable clamps to take the pressure off the wires.
I grabbed this pic real quick with my phone. Not sure how this will work, never tried loading a picture through the tapatalk app.
I've worked on a few older tube amps and that type of pinch-on strain relief was common.
My solution/replacement was a zip-tie cable clamp pulled tight around the cable where it exits the case - via a grommeted opening.
As you say, a good anchor for the cable outside the box (on to the wood cabinet) is additional security, and part of the system.
Wow, nice. I just facepalmed, I can't believe I didn't think about zip ties, I have a ton of them in a smaller size that will probably work perfect. Thanks for the head bump in the right direction.
I got my parts yesterday and was up way past my bedtime putting everything back together.
This thing runs like a top. I had gotten all the internals all cleaned up and oiled this weekend. It was amazing how well it turned just by hand after getting it all cleaned and oiled. I still have a couple more parts to try and polish the cig smoke off of, but other than that it's pretty close.
On to the current problem, you knew there would be at least one on this old of a machine.
I couldn't get the bobbin thread to pull up no matter what I tried. I took the feed dog off tonight so I could get a better look. With the thread taut and towards the top of the needle eye, the hook on the shuttle goes right under the thread and never catches to pull the thread around the bobbin.
If I leave a little slack in the thread it will hook sometimes, other times it would barely catch or fray the thread, twist it, never worked properly.
Now all this is with the needle seated all the way up into the carrier, as per the instructions in the manual. It appeared that the needle needs to come a bit lower. To test this I just seated the needle a bit shy of all the way in. It picked up the thread and carried it around every time. But I'm guessing for proper operation it needs to be seated all the way.
Which begs the question, how do I lower that just a touch so that both the thread and needle are in the proper places? The book doesn't touch on this at all.
The needle being used to test this is the needle that was in the machine from all those years ago, so guessing that it was the proper needle and something just went out of whack over time.
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