We’ve all been there…sewing along with no bobbin thread! So this time, you decide that since you had to stop sewing to wind one bobbin, that you get ambitious and wind TWO! (Insert grumbling to yourself that the next sewing machine you buy will have a bobbin sensor.)
After winding an extra bobbin, you notice the unused vertical spool pin near the bobbin winder and decide to store the extra full bobbin there until you need it.
STOP!
This is NOT the place you want to store this fresh wound bobbin, this waiting-in-the-wings savior for the next time you run out of bobbin thread.
WHY?
It so happens that also near the bobbin winder, and the obvious empty storage on the vertical spool pin, lurks the high-spinning-thread-sucking action of a sewing machines’ hand wheel. Though we never hear or feel its sucking power, it has the ability (along with the sewing machine’s constant vibration) to work a single strand of thread loose from either an unused spool of thread or full bobbin. Once it has this unsuspecting strand of thread within reach, it will begin to unwind the entire spool into the depths of the hand wheel workings, never to be seen again.
When you finally reach for that extra bobbin, you will hear yourself murmur, “I thought I had wound an extra bobbin last time…”
It’s the sewing machine “gremlins” busy at work.
Your sewing machine may feel like it is running a temperature. (You did not know a sewing machine could come down with the flu, did you?) Or maybe you notice a minor symptom that the hand wheel is now harder to turn. (Do you think the 80+ yards of thread from that missing bobbin has anything to do with that?)
Our sewing machine mechanics have pulled out many spools of thread (sometimes multiple colors) from the hand wheel area of many machines. It is one of the first things they check each time they completely open up a sewing machine for service.
The worst case of a hungry hand wheel was when they found a good portion of a spool of monofilament invisible thread. It not only had wound so tight that it took a razor blade to remove it, but the strength of the nylon thread had worn grooves into the metal of the hand wheel shaft!
This can also happen to serger owners. Always remove any spools or cones of thread that are not actively being used. A serger can not only wrap thread around the hand wheel, it can easily drag unsuspecting thread in with the threads being used. Now that’s a mess!
So let this be a friendly reminder from our service technicians to restrain from storing any unused thread or bobbins on those extra spool pins.
© 2007 SewSara, Sioux Falls, SD. All Rights Reserved.