Mike Williams - Doing it yourself

You can do it

Vintage machines are wonderful in their simplicity and they were made not only without an end date (they were made to last forever), but straight stitch machines were also made with self-servicing in mind. How do I know this? First of all, instructions for maintenance are printed in the manual.

There are just a couple of very basic rules:

Clean before oiling
One drop per oiling point. The oiling points are shown in diagrams in the user manual. In reality, you don't even need to read this. Anywhere metal rubs against metal, apply oil. With Singer straight stitch machine gears, you are also supposed to use oil.

In my sewing machine journey I've written some things down. I'll list some of the more useful of these here:

Best domestic (straight stitch) sewing machine

Fixing a runaway Singer foot controller.

How to make your Singer 306/319/320 work with normal domestic needles.

Differences between domestic and industrial sewing machines.

Rewiring a 50s Singer motor and Singerlight.

How to adjust thread tension.

How to adjust the presser foot pressure.

How to service a Singer 201

Hook timing on a Singer swing needle machine.

Replacing a broken Bernina 708 gear

Setting 411 (or 401) thread escapement.

Elna lotus drive rubber cheap replacement

Singer motor external wiring replacement.

Replacing the bobbin gear on a 70s Singer.

Husqvarna 2000 problems

Servicing a Janome My Excel