Union Special 52900 BN

[Spinone]

I picked up this machine (Union Special #52900 BN) last year and I haven’t figured out how to use it. The previous owner (97 years old) said it “worked like a charm” when he stopped using it. I cleaned and oiled it per instructions.  The cutters aren’t aligned correctly and having issues threading it. When I run it without fabric or thread it hums along.  I have the manuals and extra parts but they haven’t been useful with my skill set. I live in northern Minnesota.  Any suggestions?

[Northmount]

First suggestion is to get to know the Leather Sewing Machine area here.  Moved your post to this section where you will get a lot more response.

[Uwe]

Those specialty chain stitch machines are amazingly complicated designs and intimidating to service, at least to me. I tried my hand at one some years ago and gave up.

If this machine doesn’t make a stitch after you thread it properly using correct thread and new needles, then you may need an actual mechanic to sit in front of it and figure it out.

It’s also most definitely not a leather sewing machines, so you may not find much expertise for that specialty machine here in the leather sewing machine forum. In any case, prepare to post pictures and share YouTube videos to show what’s going on. Otherwise your odds of getting meaningful remote, crowd-sourced help are super slim.

My general advice would be to remove the cutting blade(s) until you get the machine to make a reliable stitch. Nothing good can come from running a machine with misaligned cutting blades.

Don’t run the machine under motors power until you have it figured out and can make nice, hand-turned stitches. Nothing good can come from running a mis-adjusted machine under motor power. For proper operation the hand wheel on this machine may turn in the opposite direction of most “normal” sewing machines. Some clutch motors have a tendency to start in the wrong direction.

Show us what you have in terms of documentation. A picture of your machine’s threading diagram would be very helpful, for example.

And of course, show us pictures of your actual machine, and perhaps how you have it threaded currently.

Be precise in your descriptions. “having trouble threading” doesn’t tell us a whole lot. “I can’t figure out the threading diagram”, or “I can’t get the thread through the guide tube” is more meaningful. You’ll need some long tweezers to hold the thread while threading this type of machine. Doing it with your bare fingers is nearly impossible, unless your fingers are the size of long tweezers.

Uploading pictures to this site is a bit of a challenge. Find a picture editing or resizing program or web service to make the pictures small enough to post here. 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Uwe

[Wizcrafts]

21 hours ago, Spinone said:

I picked up this machine (Union Special #52900 BN) last year and I haven’t figured out how to use it. The previous owner (97 years old) said it “worked like a charm” when he stopped using it. I cleaned and oiled it per instructions.  The cutters aren’t aligned correctly and having issues threading it. When I run it without fabric or thread it hums along.  I have the manuals and extra parts but they haven’t been useful with my skill set. I live in northern Minnesota.  Any suggestions?

Here are some Google search results for your machine.

Here is a YouTube video of one in action.

The Union Special #52900 BN is a coverstitch and chainstitch machine for cloth garments. We don't have a dedicated section for cloth sewing machines yet, but who knows what might be down the pike.

[Spinone]

Thanks for the advice - I will post some pics and threading guide as you requested.