Mastodawn

#repair #permaculture #sewing #sewingmachines

and finally, the machine reshelled and running like a champ.

i know absolutely nothing about sewing machines or sewing, but it brings my heart great joy to see anything mechanical brought back to working condition.

in three weeks (after xmas) it will begin its second life as my wife's primary sewing machine. she is a talented seamstress and makes her own clothes by reclaiming trashed fabric/clothing.

after lubrication, i could test out the mechanicals.

this is the first time the machine has turned over properly in many, many years.

i love pfaff's brutal mechanical styling when the cover is off. it would shame a T-800 in the coming robopocalypse

the same area of the bottom feed mechanism after cleaning.

90% of the machine's problems were caused by it never being cleaned even once in its drudgery existence

i began lubricating all of the working surfaces. plastics got "white lithium grease" which is the only thing i had on hand. some of the metal surfaces received some sewing machine oil. it wasn't the best choice, but it's what i had.

did i mention cleaning? 15 of the 25 hours was just cleaning time. every single millimetre of the machine had to be delinted, washed with soapy water, and then cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. i went through about 200 q-tips.

this is part of the bottom feed mechanism (on the underside of the machine) before cleaning.

figuring out why the lever part was grinding against the frame necessitated taking the machine's outer cover off, and understanding how it's "supposed" to work.

in the absence of a working pfaff sewing machine, and the fact that i know absolutely nothing about sewing machines, made for a lot of hmmming and guesswork

but as you can see, here's an obvious problem: the thingy that connects to the thingy is banging against the frame. why? because it's missing a $0.001 "e-clip" or "c-clip" or "snap ring" to hold it in place

the e-clip is supposed to snap over the metal shaft, in front of the white plastic, which holds the metal shaft in place.

this lever is supposed to rise up and down smoothly as the crankshaft turns. you can see how part of it is bunged up with lint and old thread.

this turned out to be only part of the problem

look really closely at that silver metal frame in the background. notice that it's REALLY shiny in one spot? that's because the lever has been grinding against the frame and shearing off metal bits 😬