sewing machine hand wheel stuck
cherieh
| Posted in Equipment and Supplies on
I teach high school Home Ec and am currently teaching a unit in sewing. I have several Bernina 801 Sport sewing machines. The problem I am having is that the hand wheel on some machine are stuck and won’t budge, which makes them unusable. I’ve dealt with stuck/jammed hand wheels before and have been successful in fixing them by removing caught thread, wiggling knob and hand wheel, tightening knob, oiling parts, removing needle, etc. I can not figure out how to get the hand wheel moving again. Looking inside the machine, it appears that some of the plastic “gears” are stuck. If anyone has any suggestions that would help solve this problem, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Replies
Regarding your stuck handwheels: Since it appears to be in the gears, I'd recommend that you contact your authorized repairman or dealer before going any further trying to solve the problem yourself. The warranties on sewing machines are pretty rigid and if you start messing around inside the machines, you may void the warranties.
Annie
I agree with Annie that you shouldn't do anything to void a warranty; however, most school machines are too old to be covered by one anyway. Definitely find a manual for your particular machine online if you don't have one in hand. Here's an approach you can use that won't hurt to try:
Open up one of the functioning machines and trace the movements of the parts from the wheel all the way back to the needle. (This is also usually necessary for oiling anyway, so do a little maintenance while you are there.) As you run the machine without thread, note which gears and bars move which way, and which ones don't move at all. Now take a look at the inside of one of the stuck machines, and compare which part seems to be different from the running one.
Some other possibilities include: Has someone put the machine settings into an impossible combination (zigzag while the needle is set to one side, bobbin winding)? Can you get the needle to move up and down, or are those parts stuck into position? When you press on the pedal, do you hear the motor? Does the belt move but spin uselessly? You might need to replace the belt. You might need to oil all the moving parts. Compare the plastic gears to the ones in the machines that are working--the gears might be stripped or broken.
If all else fails, try polling your colleagues and/or students's families--maybe someone knows someone who can fix just about anything and help you out. Good luck and let us know what happens!
You said you have removed thread. This reminds me of a problem my mother had with her machine when the hand wheel froze up. I took it to a repairman. You could not see any thread from the outside, but when he took the handwheel off, there was a massive amount of thread. A thread had gotten caught from a spool of thread and wound in there as the machine ran and it was packed--not visible from the outside. Don't know if this might be your problem or not.
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