craftgrrl | Bad, Naughty Sewing Machine! (Reply)

*sigh* so I dragged the old beast off the shelf this afternoon for what I hoped would be a quick little project (and adorable, too!), but four hours later, I still haven't managed a single stitch... Massive sewing machine misbehavior has ruined all my plans (inluding dinner...)!

To catch the eye and tempt the helpful response, here's a cute but unrelated photo for you -- I replaced the logo on a suitcase with a tiny eyeball monster:

And now, to the heart of the problem --

I'm not getting any stitches. When I load a new bobbin, and turn the handle, I do get a loop of bobbin thread to pull through, but when I actually begin sewing, the top thread doesn't catch the bottom thread at all. I had a less severe version of this problem once before, and took it back to the dealer from whence it came, and they fixed it (said it was fine except the tension was really weird). It was fine for quite a while after that, but now is not...

From its previous misbehavior, I figured it was probably the tension again, but I went through every available setting in a slow and methodical fashion, figuring one of them had to work, but no luck. I've read through the memories, and tried cleaning out all the old lint, reorienting the bobbin, rethreading, replacing the bobbin, rethreading again, replacing the needle, adjusting the tension some more, staring fiercely at the machine, and rethreading for a seventeenth time. Approximately once in four or five feet of "stitching," it appears to catch and make one stitch, so I know it's still possible. However, I've grown weary of fruitless adjusting!

I've moved away from the original dealer (not actually the original dealer of the machine; I think it's from the fifties...) and am having a hard time finding someone around me who does this sort of thing. It's a Signet BBS-10, made in Japan, and that's all I know about it (oh, and it's a sickly shade of yellow). I don't have a manual, and when I goggled it, I got exactly one hit, for an estate sale, so I don't have much hope of any official guidance...

Does anyone have any new and exciting wisdom to share for this? Is it likely that I could crack open the case and figure out what's up? I am somewhat mechanically able... I'm half tempted to take it out back and shoot it, but it's made of thirty pounds of steel, so I don't think it would be too affected... All help will be much appreciated!