Friday, November 15, 2013

Serger Home From the Hospital

I finally broke down and took my serger to the service technician.  I found one very close by me in the next town who charges a reasonable initial fee to boot. First off, a little history.  I bought my serger "gently used" on EBay.  It has given me nothing but fits.  I put it down to operator error since I'd never operated one before.  Like a true geek, I read.  I read the manual.  I bought and read Serger Secrets, then Simple Serger Sewing.  I read the boards on Pattern Review.  Nothing I did would make my stitches look correct.  I finally got tired of banging my head against this wall and took her in.

The verdict:  it wasn't operator error after all.  The tensions were messed up, she needs a tune up, and the needle wasn't striking the throat plate properly.  The sample in the machine was beautiful!  I couldn't wait to get her home and replicate this miracle on my project.  Lo and behold it worked!  Beautiful neat stitches. ( And less noise, too.)

I decided to test it further and changed the thread.  Tempting the evil fates, sure, but I had to know.   Oh no, wobbly over the edge again.  Had I jinxed it?  Broken it already.  I recheck my threading.  Operator error: I didn't have the looper thread properly engaged the tension disc.  Life and stitches are lovely once again.  I finally enjoy my serger.

Lessons learned:  Don't buy major purchases used on EBay.  And  service technicians are our friends.   :)

Followers