How often do you oil the shuttle / hook area of your machine?

[esantoro]

I know I've asked a similar question before, but I thought I'd ask for opinions again.

I realize that over time one gets a feel for how frequently he or she should oil various parts of his or her machine, but I just wanted to see how my experience compares with others.

How often do you oil the shuttle / hook area of your machine? I think I read somewhere that it should be oiled every two hours of machine use. In my experience, if I'm doing steady stitching, I add a few drops every 45 minutes to an hour. If I'm stitching for 30 minutes to an hour every day, I oil the rest of the machine once a day or once every two days.

How often do you oil inside the face plate, where the needle bar rises up and down , as well as the presser foot bar? I will reread that earlier post as well. On average, right now I'm probably stitching 20 to 30 actual minutes a day. Still hoping to get that up.

Thanks.

[Art]

Hi Ed,

Whole machine once a day if using it all day. Oil it if I haven't used it for a week or two. The shuttle race, once every 4 to 8 hours with use, you can get too much oil there. The only machine I am religious about is the shuttle on the Campbell and I'll put a drop of oil on the races every couple hours if using it a lot. You don't have to have your machines dripping with oil as there aren't any wear areas where there are heavy loadings on bearings or bushings, and there are few gears in most leather oriented machines. On some of the older machines, the presser foot lift or jump lift definitely don't want much oil. The industrial machines that run at the speed of light and sometimes get used 24/7 do need oil once a day or shift even, but that is all and they last for years.

Art

I know I've asked a similar question before, but I thought I'd ask for opinions again.

I realize that over time one gets a feel for how frequently he or she should oil various parts of his or her machine, but I just wanted to see how my experience compares with others.

How often do you oil the shuttle / hook area of your machine? I think I read somewhere that it should be oiled every two hours of machine use. In my experience, if I'm doing steady stitching, I add a few drops every 45 minutes to an hour. If I'm stitching for 30 minutes to an hour every day, I oil the rest of the machine once a day or once every two days.

How often do you oil inside the face plate, where the needle bar rises up and down , as well as the presser foot bar? I will reread that earlier post as well. On average, right now I'm probably stitching 20 to 30 actual minutes a day. Still hoping to get that up.

Thanks.

[esantoro]

Art,

Is it then safe to say that if there is oil underneath my foot pedals, I am probably oiling the front components of the machine too much?

Also, how is it possible that too much oiling could damage the machine? I've been erring on the side of too much oiling rather than too little.

ed

[Art]

Hi Ed,

I have oil on my pedals too. You can over oil a regular machine without any other problems than a messy drip here and there. However older design machines like the Campbell and others have some places you want to be very careful oiling. The Campbell clan are very secretive about things like this and if I told you, I would have to kill you. Actually, it has to do with the way they got the jump foot to work in those mechanical monsters, there are just parts that can't have any oil because they depend on friction to work. Most modern sewing machines can be slathered with oil at least where it won't drip on the work. Try not to get a sea of oil on the shuttle race, although it won't hurt it but it sure can collect dust and thread bits.

Art

Art,

Is it then safe to say that if there is oil underneath my foot pedals, I am probably oiling the front components of the machine too much?

Also, how is it possible that too much oiling could damage the machine? I've been erring on the side of too much oiling rather than too little.

ed