Saved a Juki LU-562 from the scrap heap today...

[Vinito]

Not sure that it would have been sent to scrap, but they did just want it out for the cleanup. It's a little beat, but it does turn over smoothly and reverses fine. I'm sure there's been a lot worse

Picked it up for $50 with a table. I figger that's not too bad. Prolly take a teardown, cleanup and reassemble before I feel great about using it, but that's just my OCD.

Anyways, unison feed for cheap. The table and servo motor are worth three times what I paid I think. Woohoo!

[garypl]

Nice find!

[Pintodeluxe]

Wow, a Juki and servo for 50 clams?  Good job!  

If you can find the hammered rosemary color spray paint from Rust-Oleum, it's a perfect match for a Juki.  

[Vinito]

Well that figures. Perfect color match, but out of reach. Evidently they sell that color in Canada, but I can't find it in the US whatsoever, at least not anymore.

I did find a color called "Verde green" so I'm gonna try that and see if it's close. Heck, maybe they just re-named the same paint. That particular green should be a highly sought-after color honestly. Seems like a good color to paint a bunch of different machinery-like things if a guy wanted to.

If the Verde green is a match, I'll report back (unless somebody else already knows it doesn't match and says so).

[JJN]

Great find. Maybe you can mask it and only paint the bed. The upper part of the machine looks pretty good.

[dikman]

With a servo too! I hope you felt a slight tinge of guilt.

I did what JJN suggested on one of my Singers, I found a fairly close match and just repainted the bed.

[Vinito]

2 hours ago, JJN said:

Great find. Maybe you can mask it and only paint the bed. The upper part of the machine looks pretty good.

Thanks. Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing. There are a bunch of flecks of some kind of paint all over it. In the past I've had fairly good luck cleaning flecks like that off with rubbing compound, plus it cleans up the paint real nice while yer at it. But yeah, the top doesn't look bad. There is a bit of a scrape at the front inside corner of the upright, but otherwise the upper machine isn't bad. If the paint is even kind of similar, a non-exact match won't bother me none.

I have a can of the Verde green on its way. Prolly shooda got a couple. But supposedly a nearby Menards carries it too so I can maybe pick up more if I need it. I guess I probably won't though.

I ordered a couple pulleys too so I can rig up a 3:1 reduction with a timing belt arrangement, which can be pulled off with smaller pulleys instead of that 12" diameter setup they sell. It was significantly cheaper too. The bearings and shafts are kinda what I do for a living and I'm sure I already have that on the junk shelf so it should be free + labor I guess. I think I'll really like a 3:1 reduction!

The tension assembly was missing some parts so I ordered one of those too. Hopefully I won't regret blowing $13 on Amazon instead of getting a pricey one. Tension is a pretty basic mechanics thing though so I'm thinking it should work fine. If it was a hook or something, I'd pull the trigger on "real" parts.

I looked it over pretty good and it looks like the tension assembly is the only goof I could notice. The knee lift doesn't even come close to actuating the levers though so I need to figure that out. Honestly, it looks to me like the table didn't match the machine  - the knee lever and stuff are nowhere near the same location. I guess I need to figure out how the pros set that up before I start reinventing the wheel though. I'm probably just mentally missing something.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Vinito

[Vinito]

Well looks like I'm probably out of luck on the color. I saw a project a guy did where he used both Hammered Rosemary and Verde Green and they are quite different.

 

... though I guess I could mix them like this guy did and end up with similar look. Personally i don't like the mix of colors much, but heck, it's not awful i guess.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Vinito

[Vinito]

OK, just so ya know, even though ya knew before I said it...

The $13 Amazon tension assembly was NOT worth the $13, so even though it's a very basic mechanical thing, they can't get it right for $13. BUT... I was able to scavenge enough parts off the thing to put together a working tension assembly. So at the end of the day, I did get the tension parts working. I haven't tested it, but it fits well enough that it should I think.

I got this machine cheap enough that I'm tempted to convert it to the big bobbin, but I guess that don't make no sense until I start to hit the wall a few times I guess. Fitting the large bobbin would be kind of a fun project, but I haven't even run one bobbin of thread through the machine yet, let alone run a bobbin dry on some make-believe important project.

Next step - clean it up, lube it and give it an honest test.

[Vinito]

Well looks like I'm probably gonna earn this machine. Been fiddling now and then with mostly inspection with a smidge of cleaning here & there, but the deeper I look, the more muck I find. I've decided this thing really needs a complete disassemble and deep cleaning. You should see the area around the bobbin. Holy cow! It's totally packed in a mix of old oil and lint which has combined into a sludgy felt. So far I've found that even solvent in a parts washer struggles with dissolving it, but turns out gasoline is hard to beat as it cleans it up pretty good.

Since the color match didn't work out and the paint is pretty rough on the machine anyway, I guess while it's completely apart is a good time to just drop back and give it a whole new coat of something. I'll go with hammered just because I like it, but don't know what color yet. Might just do silver, but I have some dark-ish bronze hammered on the shelf and that might look cool even if it disguises the identity of the machine from a distance.

I halfway want to have a go at changing to a large bobbin while I'm in there too. I am a machinist so if it needs any of that I can do it. I just don't know if it will be worth the money for the rest of the parts. They have hooks on eBay for under $30, but I'd bet they aren't worth the metal they are made from at that price.

I hope I can make sense of the service manuals I can find. The one I've been using at (I think it's the military 111 one IIRC) keeps referring to drawing numbers that aren't included in the thing and that's super frustrating. Why bother to scan a manual and leave pages out? Especially pages with drawings which are referred to over and over? If anyone knows of a full service manual for a Juki LU-562/563 (or clone, i.e. Singer 111, etc.) which is complete and really good, please link to it here. Otherwise, I will try to keep making sense with the one I have and fill the gaps with trial and error.

OK, here we go! I've taken the arm shaft apart and cleaned all those parts plus the hook stuff. What a total mess it used to was. But it's clean as a whistle now. Progress I guess. If it doesn't go as well as I hope, then I might have a basket of parts for sale coming up.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Vinito