peterstarch

@friquant Thank you for the response! I imagine I will have to fiddle with my check spring regardless but I believe I have solved the skipped stitching issue. I bought 16x63 needles (what the manual instructs) thinking the previous owner never re-timed this machine, but I believe he actually did re-time it to take 135x17 needles. Both a blessing and a curse, because the 135x17 are much more common and offer a lot of variety, but now I have to get new needles because I don't think its worth the effort to readjust it to use an almost obsolete needle type. Thank you for your help!!!!

Yea, it actually tells you in the regular users manual, which is pretty cool. The long groove as in the scarf? It was my belief that you want the scarf facing the hook which would be right in this case. Do you know if the screw of the adjustment for the check spring is actually supposed to catch it? I figure it may be bent a bit since it seems like adjusting the plate that the screw holds under it does not seems to do anything, the spring is always stopped by the screw that holds it. Anyway thanks for your response, I do appreciate it a lot. +

Hello all, I have very recently acquired a singer 16-188 and I have managed to mess up either the timing or the take up spring (the loop forms just before the hook has time to pick it up), I am not exactly sure which. I am using a size #138 thread with a size 23 needle (16x63) I was just wondering if anyone could tell by just looking at a picture of the BDC position of the needle to tell whether it is timed correctly or not. I believe the eye of the needle is about 1/16" too far below the hook. I wanted to ask so if in the case it is the fault of the take up spring I can save myself the trouble of removing the whole faceplate (is that what its called?) to access the needle bar. Thank you everyone! And this forum is truly a wealth of information. I do not sew with leather all that much, but even the machine information here is probably one of the best resources on the internet I have found. hand crank.MOV