Cleaning a White Speedylock 1600 Serger

In my work I use sergers all the time. In truth I probably have more miles put on them than my car. Anyone that uses a serger a lot knows how quickly they can fill up with lint from the knife cutting off excess fabric. So I regularly open the front cover of my machines and clean this out with my brush or a vac with small hose attachment.

But one of my sergers gets especially filthy because I use it in a shop where I also work with a fine mineral. Needless to say the mineral clings to my machine like a magnet. So whenever I bring this machine back to the house I clean it the best I can before starting my next order. Every few years I take it in to a professional and let them clean it and adjust my tensions. Unfortunately the last time I took it in it didn't come back as clean as I would like but it was probably due to the fact that they had never seen one as dirty as mine. So instead of spending the $100 and having to be without my machine for up to a week I got to wondering if I could give it a more thorough cleaning myself. Also my tensions were acting up again and I was curious to know how they worked. I like to think of myself as a mechanically inclined person even though I don't really have much experience but have always loved to see how thinks work. So with my set of screwdrivers I set off to perform exploratory surgery on my oldest but most trusty serger.

 As you can tell from the pictures it came apart easy enough. I took pictures as I went along so I could put it back together again. These were taken after I had cleaned most of it. I used rubbing alcahol and cue tips to get the grime off. Then applied machine lubricating gel and machine oil to parts that rotate. The gel works the best because it doesn't drip down in the machine causing the base to fill up with grease and lint. This took awhile but the results were like having a brand new machine. I did not figure out how to adjusts the tensions but I cleaned them with alcohol on a cue tip and then spun them all to 0 and then to 9. They all adjusted the same so I'm thinking I just had some lint in there that was keeping them from working right.

 When I got it all put back together my machine never sounded so good. Gone was the clanging I had gotten use to. Now it just sped along. But I did make one mistake, I have the habit of tying on my next thread cone and just sewing on. This usually works fine but the last time I did it, it popped my tension again and it was just the tension that I had tied on. So I think I'm messing up by leaving the presser foot down which keeps the tensions tight when sewing. I should stop, lift the presser foot, tie on the new thread but then pull it through by hand until it gets pass the tensions dial. I have to take my machine apart again and fix the dial so after that I'll test out my theory.

Happy Serging.
PS This was an old machine I didn't mind messing up if I made a mistake. If you have a newer machine that is under warranty I would take it to a professional.