Machine Is Up And Running!

[DenverLeather]

After 2-3 days of building and setting up my Singer 153, I sewed about 10 lines on leather........ and managed to get thread jammed under the bobbin case.....

A simple google search revealed that this can tend to be a terrible, and sometimes expensive, problem.

Hurray for stupidity!! I should have just taken a handful of hundred dollar bills and burned them in the grill, as a Memorial Day celebration......

[amuckart]

Threads under the bobbin case shouldn't be a horrendously expensive problem to fix. Whip the bobbin case out and clean the birdsnest out.

Can you see what caused it? Sounds like either the top tension is going wonky or the timing of the thread take up is off.

[DenverLeather]

Threads under the bobbin case shouldn't be a horrendously expensive problem to fix. Whip the bobbin case out and clean the birdsnest out.

Can you see what caused it? Sounds like either the top tension is going wonky or the timing of the thread take up is off.

I'm assuming I pulled the bobbin thread with slightly too much pressure, when finishing a run. I'm trying to take the bobbin case out now, but am assuming that I'll end up throwing off the timing (if I haven't already)....

[DenverLeather]

Birdsnest cleaned out..... Now the bobbin won't turn.... This might have been the issue prior to the birdsnest....

Clueless...

[amuckart]

I get the impression you're fairly new to sewing machines?

The basics of timing a machine are actually quite simple, and largely transferrable from machine to machine, so don't stress too much about that. Do you have pictures of the bobbin/shuttle area?

When you say the bobbin won't turn, is it not rotating in the bobbin holder, or is the shuttle itself jammed?

[DenverLeather]

I get the impression you're fairly new to sewing machines?

The basics of timing a machine are actually quite simple, and largely transferrable from machine to machine, so don't stress too much about that. Do you have pictures of the bobbin/shuttle area?

When you say the bobbin won't turn, is it not rotating in the bobbin holder, or is the shuttle itself jammed?

"New to sewing machines" is an understatement, unfortunately... I suppose I was referring to the shuttle.

Here's a picture?

[DenverLeather]

Anyone -

Are these things lined up correctly? Or are they 180 degrees off? (see picture, with arrows pointing to "yellow" parts of the machine)

Thanks..

[amuckart]

I'm not specifically familiar with that machine, but they look right to me. I'd say the lower-left one in the picture is to stop the bobbin spinning around, and the upper right one in the picture is the hook that should pick up the top thread to build the stitch. If you remove the bobbin and the top thread and turn the machine over by hand is the hook turning?

Have a look at the Singer Manuals there are manuals for various 153s in there. The quality isn't great but with the machine in front of you it's easy enough to figure out what's what.

I don't know what sub-model you have, but the manual for the 153k101, 102, 103 and 154k101 has a section at the end for adjusters that is probably quite useful to you.

[DenverLeather]

I'm not specifically familiar with that machine, but they look right to me. I'd say the lower-left one in the picture is to stop the bobbin spinning around, and the upper right one in the picture is the hook that should pick up the top thread to build the stitch. If you remove the bobbin and the top thread and turn the machine over by hand is the hook turning?

Have a look at the Singer Manuals there are manuals for various 153s in there. The quality isn't great but with the machine in front of you it's easy enough to figure out what's what.

I don't know what sub-model you have, but the manual for the 153k101, 102, 103 and 154k101 has a section at the end for adjusters that is probably quite useful to you.

When I remove the bobbin & top thread, and turn the machine over by hand, the hook doesn't seem to turn completely every time... Sometimes it just barely turns.... On some turns, it seems to get "stuck" - or "mis-fire" if that makes any sense...

[amuckart]

When I remove the bobbin & top thread, and turn the machine over by hand, the hook doesn't seem to turn completely every time... Sometimes it just barely turns.... On some turns, it seems to get "stuck" - or "mis-fire" if that makes any sense...

I'm working off general principles here. If there's someone out there with direct experience with this model of machine, they may be able to point you to more specific things that relate to this exact machine.

That makes sense, yes. Can you feel any resistance in the mechanism when you do this? It helps to slip the belt off the flywheel when you test this. If it's all smooth but the hook just doesn't go round it sounds to me like the screw that holds it in place is completely undone. If there's 'chunks' of resistance it's probably still there, but loose.

If this is the case you need to remove the hook (instructions are in the PDF I linked to above) and see what the screw looks like. If it isn't stripped and the thread it engages with isn't damaged, then it should be a fairly simple case of putting the hook back in and tightening the screw up. You'll probably have to re-time the machine again, but that isn't as difficult as it sounds.

If nothing else it sounds like this machine will be a good learning experience (kinda like my 45k which still isn't back together but has taught me a lot). I'm pretty sure everyone has had these, not even Bob and Wiz were born knowing this stuff so be patient and you'll get it working eventually.

If you want to learn how sewing machines work in a general sense, I'd recommend getting hold of an old domestic Singer, models 201, 66, 15 or 99 are good, and completely stripping and reassembling it. They're simple machines that pretty much only go back together one way and there's good information online about how to work on them, set the timing etc, and the principles are directly applicable to other machines, even big industrials.