My Long Arm Needed Surgery!

On Thursday (a week ago today) when I already had a couple other things going on, I decided to get careless.

I had changed the thread and bobbin to the new color and then got the backing of the next quilt all loaded up. Without bothering to make sure nothing had happened to the threading, I just started to try to baste the quilt top down.

Well, the machine jammed. It made a sound worse than anything I had heard to date with regards to it.

See that thread coming out of nowhere? That’s not supposed to be there! There are also a bunch of threads actually caught in the metal bits of the case part.

I reached over and turned it off quickly. I then looked at the threading part and saw that the thread had gotten twisted up in the tension area, and I had a mess. I fixed that.

But…

My needle was stuck. It wouldn’t move with the hand wheel. Nothing.

I decided I had to take the needle out - maybe it was all bent and causing that.

So I did - I removed the needle, but still the hand wheel still wouldn’t turn. Nothing.

This was very sad. I decided to look down below at the bobbin area and see if I could see something.

Yes. Sure enough I saw threads hanging down there threads are not supposed to hang!

I was having a hard time getting to the threads. I did the best I could with a pair of tweezers and a flashlight, but it was difficult to get in there.

I took off the throat plate - and boy was that a mess! I hadn’t done that since I got the machine in 2022! :( I cleaned all that out - but I still couldn’t get to the threads hanging down from the bobbin holder area. It was obvious I had threads wrapped around the bobbin case area - but not the bobbin case which is removeable - but rather the thing that encloses the bobbin case. It was thoroughly wrapped around something.

I wrote my husband a note - as I had thought he was upstairs. I visualized having to box the whole machine back up and sending it somewhere for service. Hmm.

Anyway, I sent him a picture. However, he did not respond at all. (My long arm room is in the basement - and he was upstaris, or so I thought. However, he was not home - he was off for a bike ride.)

I went upstairs and decided I might as well trim the quilts I did have quilted, so I cleared off the table and got started. I got one trimmed and in the door he walked.

I explained my situation to him and told him the long arm needed attention. It was an emergency situation - please, could he help?

Well, he could. He said he would come down and see what he could do.

I knew we would have to take the whole machine off the frame and take it apart in order to get to the bobbin area. I just was too afraid to try it myself. I was scared I wouldn’t remember how to put it back together.

And so we did.

To spare you all the details, we had to take it off the frame and then my husband started deconstructing the bottom part so he could get to the offending threads.

Needless to say, we also cleaned everything while we were at it. The rollers, the insides everywhere. Since he is a mechanic he has an air compressor which did a very thorough job of cleaning out the lint - even after I had brushed and brushed. No comparison as to how clean he got it!

At first the hand wheel was still stuck. I had oiled that part and could tell something was causing it to not move. At the point of surgery it was moving maybe 1/16” back and forth, but I didn’t want to force it.

Finally, after we had all the thread out we could see and the hand wheel still wouldn’t move, my husband took hold of it and more forcefully turned it. It moved. Out popped another bunch of thread!!

Oh my. I was so happy to see my hand wheel going around and around again! Obviously I didn’t know if we had done something to hurt it or not - but at least it was going round and round!

This is the mess that was stuck to the bottom of that metal plate under the bobbin case area.

So, to make a couple of hour process shorter, we ended up putting the whole thing back together again - no lost screws, washers, etc.

We put it back on the frame and finally, the moment of truth.

All this thread came off the wheels on the roller area (NOT the bobbin)!

It turned back on just fine.

And it ran just fine.

So thankful.

So I was back in business.

I’m so thankful for a husband with, to put it like the Polish people say, “golden hands” - someone who can do things with his hands - or fix things. :)

But it did give me scare.

But the whole experience was good for me. I realized I do need to take my throat plate off once in a while and clean out under there. It was bad. Really bad. Really really bad. No, I didn’t take any pictures. I hadn’t done it since I got the machine, though, back in 2022.


Since surgery, I have quilted 20 + or so quilts, so it’s working just fine.

Thankfully!

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.












Becky PetersenComment