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Old sewing machines

I don't know if any of you know anything about old sewing machines, but I figured it could not hurt to ask. You all were a big help with a fountain pen problem I had a few months back.

Here is the situation: My wife has had her great-grandmother's sewing machine for years. It is an old White sewing machine triple-matic 670. We finally got around to cleaning and oiling it. It seemed to be working great, and my wife set it for a zigzag stitch to sew a button on the skirt she had made. That worked great, and there were no sounds of anything breaking. However, now it will not go back to normal sewing. It just does a zigzag. I have tried looking through the mechanisms, but I cannot find anything wrong. It seems like I should just be able to turn a switch to get it working again. We have reset it to the settings it was on before the zigzag started but that does not do anything.

Does anyone know anything about these machines or where I can find people that do?

Thanks,

EW
 
If you live in a town with more than 30,000 people, chances are there is a sewing shop of some kind. Let your fingers do the walking.
 
Those old full featured machines have some very complex mechanical circuits. The more features the more complex. They rely on sliding cams and dogs and essentially gearboxes to do their different functions. My experience is that if the machine was working when you put it away 20 years ago, the oil will have become glue and will hinder the sliding of some fixture inside. If you can find the failing part in question, it probably needs to have the old oil cleaned out with a thin solvent like kerosene or penetrating oil. Once it is free it needs to be dried and then oiled with a good sewing machine oil. Not knowing how it works, you can not easily see where the problem is. It would probably be best to have a shop service it.
 
Call a sewing store. If they don't have a service department, they should be able to give you some names.

Also, Just like with B&B, I am sure that there is an online sewing community. My wife is into many of these crafts. She has different websites that she visits for ideas and help.
 
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