Greetings everyone,
In what might have become one of my dumbest moves of my life, I sold away a perfectly good Singer 5810 sewing machine, and got myself a Singer 4622A. Now, I am looking at the machine, I am looking at myself in the mirror, and I don't like what I see. Anybody got a gun? ;-)
Before I go any further, I was sold the machine under false pretenses. It was assured to me that it was new, almost never used. Since I trusted the person, I bought it. Rule number one: never buy a sewing machine from a family member!
However, things are not as bad as I make them appear so far. But I will need some help in transforming the lemon into lemonade. So here are my questions:
1) How can I oil the machine? I have downloaded the parts list for that machine, which offers diagrams of how all the parts fit together, but even with that, I am no closer to removing the top cover in order to oil the machine. As luck would have it, no mention of oiling is made in the instruction manual.2) The special buttonholer foot. This foot is for the one-step buttonhole. What I want to know is if it's supposed to be that loose near the shank of the foot? The foot sways from left to right and that doesn't strike me as normal. This is a snap-on foot, which I dislike, and will probably replace it with a real foot eventually. Again, the marvelous instruction manual doesn't even mention that feature of the machine, or how to use it.
3) Not a complaint per se, but I am curious. How can someone break the bobbin case? The bobbin case in the machine is new, but I got the old broken one in the accessories. I understand it is plastic, but it was broken in places I didn't even know a needle could penetrate! :-)Apart from that, I am quite surprised at the way the machine behaves. The tension is perfect, and the stitches are as perfect as I can hope for, which is very surprising, since that machine probably had some abuse in the past. That is why I am willing to try to save that machine, even if modern-day Singers are usually not worth the trouble. I am one of the rare people who had no problems with Singers made in the nineties (1990-1995).
It is true that a sewing machine service center will tune-up the machine for me, but I still need to know how to do basic maintenance. So if someone can help me on that matter, I will be grateful.
Basic info on the machine:
Singer 4622A
24 stitches/slant needle one-step buttonholerProblems solved so far: Tension disk for the bobbin on top of the machine, restored a too loose thread cap, adjusted all tensions, cleaned it, and got the lint off.
Mario Landerman