In search of one for SO's John Lewis JL 250 without much luck so far. Anyone know any good sites, or original manufacturer's name / model number? Mainly for cleaning / maintenance rather than "how to use".
TIA
Do you have a photo of the shuttle? For 99% of post-war machines they use one of three types of shuttle, and everything works the same within that. One is Singer (vertical axis, varied), one is cheap Japanese (horizontal axis & the shuttle race is easily removable without tools) and the best is Euro or high-end Japanese with a horizontal axis. General weekly servicing is the same throughout - brush / vacuum it clean, one drop of SEWING MACHINE oil down each of the oil holes and keep oil & solvents away from anything plastic. Silicone grease on the plastic gears annually, if you have to.
The "starter Haynes manual" for sewing machines is an old bright yellow paperback by TAB books. Out of print for years, but it's a favourite on the ebay hooky reprint circuit. It'll tell you how to set timing for most machines.
There's also a lot of mileage in web searching for PDF service manuals (esp Americans, which means the Scottish Singers too), even if you have to pay a fiver.
IMHO, sewing machines are repaired by replacement with something better, until you've worked up to a Pfafff / Bernina / Viking. Then they don't need much more fettling anyway.
Thanks for the useful pointers. It's probably about 10 years old, vertical axis shuttle. Sorry, not set up with any of the photo "drop boxes". I wanted to make sure I'd located all the oil holes, also how to check the thread tensions. It's got me wondering what sewing machine oil is too; I'd guess something like a 10 cSt straight mineral oil? Can't see much need for additives, or any benefit from synthetic. Couldn't immediately locate a copy of the TAB manual.
Looking at the pics, I'd expect it to be a badge-engineer job, probably a Janome underneath (maybe Toyota, as I think they sell more as re-badges), and I'd be amazed if it wasn't the cheapo Japanese front-loader oscillating shuttle. If you flip two little plastic clips, can you take the shuttle out?
There aren't many. Trace the mechanism from end to end, not stripping down anything that isn't plastic and held on with no more than two screws. If it isn't a drilled hole with a countersink, it's not a regular oil hole. Less is more.
Get the threading right, then leave it alone. You set the top tension to the middle of the dial, then look at stitch formation as it sews, adjusting until perfect. For some materials and some threads, you knock it a division or two either way. If that's not enough, you;'ve mis-threaded it, or put the bobbin in backwards. If that's the base machine that I think it is, 90% of faults are caused by it throwing its thread off the top arm through the "easy threading" slot.
Don't even think about it. You care about viscosity, you care about the crud it leaves behind, but mostly you care about it never oxidising. Go to the shop and buy the right stuff.
I wouldn't expect this machine to need much servicing, or to wear out before it's thrown away.
the mark 1 eyeball should do that. All oil holes need to be user serviceable. If it uses plastic gears theyre probably prelubed.
If the 2 threads meet halfway through the fabric, the tensions are even. If the stitching is sloppy, theyre too low. If it puckers all fabrics (not just lgihtweights) then its too high.
Machine oil. Baby oil is the same type of oil, with a tiny amount of perfume added.
NT
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