It's time for another FW tip. And, let's get ready for May's Club Class?

Whew!  It's been a crazy busy couple of months and I know me, it's going to stay busy while I get things packed up and moved to the UP for the summer.  We've had to wait for this weather to break but it looks like Spring is finally getting settled in.  I hope that's the case in the UP as well.  We can't go until the ground thaws.

But, you all send me questions and I get more ideas of things you need to know about your sweet machines.  This time I'd like to talk about the motors and the lube that needs to be put in those motor ports.

You already know that the motor lube has to be of the type that will soften and get almost liquid as the motor warms up so that the felt wick in the motor ports will become saturated with lube and the motor shaft will get lubricated.  We sure don't want the motor to be running without being properly lubricated and the product I recommend is available from the featherweight shop,  www.singer-featherweight.com.

Anyway, recently I had someone come to me thinking the foot controller for her machine was running too slowly and she wanted me to check it.  I plugged in another foot controller but it still ran slower than normal so I thought, it might not be the foot controller.  It might be the motor.

So, we checked the motor ports to see if we could see any motor lube and we couldn't.  So, I used the tube that comes with the motor lube to see if the lube in those ports was dark and hard like it was the first time we lubed it.  Guess what!  There didn't seem to be any lube in the ports.  Okay, it had been a few months since a FW spa day but I know we lubed those ports at that time.  Well, having all the lube gone is a good thing and a bad thing.  Let's talk about the good thing first.

The lube being gone at this point meant that the motor was using the lube and that's what it's supposed to do, yeah!  But, the bad thing was that now the motor needed more lube because it was laboring and causing the machine to run more slowly than usual.

Of course, the answer to the problem was to put motor lube into the ports and use the machine long enough to warm it up and get those felt wicks saturated again.  Once we did that the motor was happy and the machine ran up to speed once again.

Well, I learned something.  We need to check the motor lube more often than 6 month intervals especially when we've done a cleaning and spa day for the first time.  Who knows how long it's been since the lube was replaced before we got these machines.  And, I can tell you that many modern machine repair people don't think to do the motor ports correctly.  I've see too much of that.  Sorry but that seems to be the case way too often.

And, I also want to remind you of the last of our FW Club Classes for this season.  They will be held the 4th and 6th of May from 1-3pm at the Quilt Patch in Tecumseh, Mi.  Check the class schedule for details about the class and what to bring.

I've been working hard to come up with a FW retreat in August and will give more details on April 30th.  Check  the class schedule for that information as well.  I'm looking forward to our getting together for a few days of FW fun.

As always, if you have questions, email me at:  jdquilts123@yahoo.com and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.