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Messages - Barnyard

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31
Vintage Machines / Re: Free Motion can damage a machine!
« on: September 26, 2017, 20:31:06 PM »
I'm not quite sure why you would use the stoppax on a 201 in the 1st place? It is a mechanism designed for machines where the feed dogs cannot be lowered. Just drop the feed dogs and install the spring loaded quilting / embroidery foot? I do have a stoppax and it lives with my 221 but whenever I use it I turn the presser foot tension nearly all the way out. Having said that the amount of quilting or indeed free motion embroidery I have done is close to zero so I could be talking tosh  :D

Barny

32
Sewing Machines / Re: Problems with Singer 513
« on: September 26, 2017, 20:12:20 PM »

Thanks for reminding me to oil it before it was serviced I used 3 in 1.

Therin lies the problem. Never ever use 3 in 1 oil on a sewing machine it simply kills them. The reason is that the oil within the 3 in 1 evaporates quickly leaving behind a horrible sticky residue that then hardens between the machine being used so the owner adds more oil and a nasty cycle of adding more and more begins until the machine becomes so gunked up it fails in one area or another. I wouls stop using it and take it for a service straight away and I will bet the 3 in 1 has either been the culprit (between the tension disks) or has at least played a major part in your troubles.
If you feel competent enough, a pack of cocktail sticks, q tips, cotton buds, meths and genuine sewing machine oil combined with copious amounts of time will get it cleaned and running. For a picure reference take a look at my post on the vintage machine page. That residue is incorrect oil being used and took the best part of 20 hours to remove. The machine now runs perfectly whereas when it came to me would barely turn.

Barny

33
What had gone on the mobo? Was it the usual capacitor??
Edit : duh.. I speed read/wrote... sorry...
had the capacitor taken everything else out with it? or was it a power surge blew everything kind of thing??

The capacitor in itself does nothing, it is just there as a supressor. The problem with the mainboard was track seperation and dry joints. Mainboard seperation means the copper tracks between the various transducers, gates and resistors has delaminated. How can I explain it???
Ok, it's like you have a ham salad sandwich with mayo. The the ham and the salad are are on the bottom slice of your favoured bread the mayo is on the top. The sandwich is delaminated which means you cannot put them together to form the sandwich as a whole and thus have 2 halves instead of one whole. No matter how you try to assemble the top to bottom parts they simply will not sit together and will always have a degree of seperation.

I need to get out more, really I do!

Barny

34
Vintage Machines / Re: Restoring a Bernina 840 Favorit
« on: September 24, 2017, 21:16:55 PM »
Madame, the service manual for the 900 would be really appreciated. I do have one, or did have one but right now it is not to hand and is probably 250 miles away in my other residence in South Wales. If you would be so kind, I would really appreciate the link. The 900 is a great machine but it does have it faults. Mainboard capacitor, carbon tracks in the foot control and a locking free motion that sticks like glue. Hmm... The better they get the more unreliable they get also.

Barny

35
That is an amazing improvement  :)
(... what is it about stitch width knobs lately, why are they ganging up on us and being difficult??!..  :S)

Just because they can, they know they have the upper hand and want to defeat us. But we know in the longer term we will overcome and repair. I had a Nova 900 sat here for a few years that was perfect other than a fully blown mainboard,  not the usual capacitor problem but a full mobo replacement was needed. It sat here ready and one day the donor arrived. Transplant done and machine running it was off to a new home. Now I am the very same situation again. Stunning machine with a blown mobo. The thing is, it does keep the interest alive and on the flip side one small component can mean the death of a machine and I would rather it sat waiting or becoming a doner machine than scrap it.

Barny

36
Much cleaner and working really well. The issue with the zig zag is still prevalent but to be honest how many times do you use the function? If I were to be totally pedantic I would remove all the old oil stains from the paintwork but in this case it has now had just about enough work applied. The machine sews and it sews well, very well. The motor has been rebuilt and every moving part has been cleaned of all the old sticky residue and now everything moves and functions as it should...with that one exception...grrr
 I will do a video, an opportune moment is all that is needed.

 








37
Vintage Machines / Re: Restoring a Bernina 840 Favorit
« on: September 24, 2017, 19:50:52 PM »
That's some dedication and determination you have trying to get this sorted and I applaud you for sticking at it. I will keep eyes open in my locale for donor parts as it would be fantastic to see it running. I do love a cheapo find, sometimes they do end up becoming a pain in the @ss and I pop them to one side and carry on with something else for a while.
Would I be correct in saying Bernina had part of their factory washed away in a flood and more specifically their spares warehouse? I could have imagined it but if true that would make vintage Bernina spares rarer than rocking horse poop.

I have just taken a Nova 900 into the workshop... Fingers crossed the problems are just the usual suspects!

Barny

38
A few more hours today trying to get into the nitty gritty parts and stripping the motor and foot control. The new cable has yet to arrive so I spent a while inspecting the existing wiring and although it both looks and tests as being perfectly fine I will still be replacing it. The motor stripdown was trying for want of a better word, but now it is cleaned and running very smoothly. The foot control had so much gunk and dead creatures in it I am glad I didnt plug it in before stripping it, talk about a fire hazard! Tomorrow will be the final lube and test of the machine as a whole. I shall do a quick video though I do regret not doing one before I started work on her.
I still have that one niggling problem with the zig zag and I will take time to try and show this on the video.

As yet I have not touched the wooden base, that will be a job to look at some time next week. For now I know she is running, the timing is correct and the stich quality is now spot on. I may well just pass this one on to my eldest for her to practice on whilst I work on her Christmas present machine...

Barny

39
It is alive and sewing! I spent a few more hours on her today and managed to get the few last (bar one) mechanical jobs sorted. The motor is in pieces awaiting a clean and rebuild so I installed a singer motor that I have and gently began to test her. I began with a soft cotton and worked my way through materials and densities and in the end she was zigzagging her way through double leather with no problem whatsoever.
Finding a manual has been a chore and although I managed to find one for a J-A-28 it is not the same model as mine. There are still many areas that need attention and cleaning but it is superficial paintwork etc and other than that and the rewire the machine as a whole is just about done.

There is one niggling problem and I will pop up a video as it's easier to show than explain but it is about the zig zag mech flapping about between 0 and number 2.

So far so good, 200+ Q tips and a bottle of white and methelated spirit later and I have a working machine that I very nearly dropped off at the local recycling centre. Cost of machine £5. Hours put in 20+. Satisfacion... Priceless

Barny

40
Patchwork & Quilting ... Welcome to the Darkside / Re: Nearly Finished
« on: September 20, 2017, 23:23:30 PM »
Beautiful! You have just given me inspiration for a winter project. Minecraft quilt for my daughter.
Time to get the 15k out and have a play, well not now, nor tomorrow. Next week maybe.??? I need to YouTube for a few days first I think.

Barny

41
A few hours spent today removing the dust and grime. The white spirit / machine oil bath freed up all but the most tricky out of reach parts. These are now pretty clean too after copious Q tips and cocktail sticks this evening gently working away at the grime. I will leave the paintwork that is stained on the underside for now and concentrate on getting the machine running. The next job is the motor and the wiring. New cable ordered to match the original as close as I can and the motor stripdown will begin tomorrow evening. The lamp wiring might be a tricky number to do so that too for now might just have to wait. I do enjoy working on these old machines and a Madam Cholet commented there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had from giving them a proper clean and getting them running again. There are a couple of issues that I will ask you great people for advice on at a later date as for now just getting her up and running is the main priority, nuances can wait a while.  There is a serial number too J-A-28 (model number)? H76294029.
Should the replacement cable arrive as expected I would think that by Sunday or Monday she should be ready to play. I cannot wait!!

Barny

42
Here it is. Dirty smelly and so full of fluff.










I was just about to call it a day and write the machine off and then I noticed my cloth on top of the bereau....



There it was, looking directly at the machine. Just a piece of cloth that had randomly formed some strange Frog face.
Close up of Frog face.



Now i'm looking at it, the cloth, looking at it, the machine and thinking I really should get out more.
Seeing frogs in cloth, silly man.

Barny

43
Vintage Machines / Charity shop find. Brother "Wesminster" Made for Curry's
« on: September 18, 2017, 18:21:36 PM »
I received a call from the local charity shop this morning, they had two old machines arrive for me to look at if I wanted to pop round. One was a very sad 99K that had been rotting somewhere very damp for a very long time and the other was this Brother "Westminster" machine. It was complete with foot control and cover and at £10 for the two machines I was soon heading home. 99k stripped for parts as it really did need a full restoration job that would mean a back to metal strip and repray / decal job that I just don't have the space to do right now. The Brother was not as bad but was full of fluff, lint, long dead spiders and thread wrapped around just about every moving part, even the motor pulley had a good collection of multi coloured threads wrapped around the armature. Every joint, bearing, pivot and shaft is caked in a thick residue of fluff and nasty oil that really freaked me out when I saw it. So now she is bathing in a bath of white spirit and singer oil. Tomorrow will hopefully be a day of removing the grime, the white spirit having dissolved the crud and singer oil moisturised them, then the stripdown and rebuild can begin. I have never seen this model before so I really want to get her up and running, more out of interest than anything but if anyone has info on this machine I would be grateful for any pointers or advice.

Pics to follow!

Barny

44
Vintage Machines / Re: Feathereight help needed please!
« on: September 11, 2017, 20:11:27 PM »
There are a few places that thread jams are typically a place of annoyance and the difficult ones do require a bit of a stripdown. If you can remove the baseplate, bobbin plate and feed dog plate you will more than likely see remenants of the thread. Thread in front of the counterbalance on the drive shaft is easy to spot and will cause tightening and if the thread has also wrapped around the the underneath of the hook assembly then it does require a stripdown. If you post a picture of these areas it would help me, help you get it sorted. There is one part of your post that I cannot figure out though. " The switch was on" The machine should never run on it's own. I suspect a capacitor failure in one of 3 places if this is indeed the case of the machine running without input from the foot control. Motor, Pedal and Machine capacitors can and do fail.

Barny

45
Vintage Machines / Re: Here she is...
« on: August 27, 2017, 18:33:13 PM »
That's some interesting stuff there Efemera. I do not have one of these machines as the needle supply problem has always put me off. This has just piqued my interest again. Thank you for posting that, really appreciate it.
Now looking on the bay of evil for a suitable modifiable candidate!

Barny

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