How to Clean a Sewing Machine
Technician Tips · Maintenance
How to Clean a Sewing Machine: Tips from a Technician
Of everything you can do to maintain your machine at home, the biggest is cleaning out unwanted lint and shredded thread.
Why? Because compacted lint and shredded thread can obstruct the thread path, from the spool to the needle and from the bobbin during the stitch-making process, and that affects the quality of your stitches.
How to Clean a Sewing Machine
Yes, canned air is fine
You can use a lint brush to clean your sewing machine. But a more effective method is pressurized air, whether canned air or an air compressor.
Floating around the sewing machine world is the misconception that blowing out your machine with canned air is bad for it. I’ve heard people say it can dislodge wires and mess up the electronics, that it blows lint deeper into the machine, that it actually damages the machine.
This is simply not true.
Take it from me, my father, my uncle, and the other techs who work with us: we use the power of air to clean lint out of every machine we service. Air clears out nooks and crannies you can’t see and reaches places a lint brush never could. At our shop we use a powerful air compressor; for home use, a can of compressed air does just fine. Most lint will fly out of the machine and into your sewing room. Anything blown deeper will most likely float down to the bottom of the machine’s outer shell, out of harm’s way.
Blowing out a machine with compressed air.
Where to Clean a Sewing Machine
Five key areas you can clean at home
1. Hook mechanism
Whether you have a vertical front-loading bobbin system (e.g. Bernina, vintage Pfaff) or a horizontal rotary-hook drop-in bobbin system (Janome, Brother, Baby Lock), the area around the hook mechanism is prone to lint buildup.
On drop-in bobbin machines, we often find lots of lint underneath the bobbin case, between the bobbin case and the hook. On front-loading bobbin machines, we often find lint built up behind the hook itself.
2. Bobbin case tension discs
If compacted lint and thread get stuck between the bobbin case tension discs, the discs won’t close properly. Then the bobbin thread has zero tension and gets pulled up to the top of the fabric as small loops.
Small loops on top of the fabric can also be caused simply by not getting the thread between the tension discs when you put the bobbin in the bobbin case. But if you did thread the bobbin case correctly and there’s still a zero-tension condition, take a close look between the bobbin case tension discs (the thin silver discs circled in red below).
When cleaning your machine, blow some canned air between the bobbin case tension discs as a precaution. If you ever get loops on the top side of your fabric with a zero-tension condition, canned air may not be enough. Often the lint is so compacted I can’t see it with the naked eye, but experience tells me something is stuck in there. Fishing around with a pin or needle can be more effective.
My favorite tool
A dental pick, the kind used to scrape plaque off teeth. The thin, rigid tip does a great job digging thread and lint out of those tiny, hard-to-reach tension discs.
3. Upper tension discs
Like the bobbin case discs, compacted lint or thread wedged between the upper tension discs can cause a zero-tension condition on the top thread. Zero tension in the bobbin case causes loops on the top side of the fabric; zero tension on the upper thread causes loops (eyelashes) on the underside.
When the presser foot is raised, the tension discs are open; when it’s lowered, they’re closed. To clean them, raise the presser foot, then blow out the space between the discs with canned air. Again, I promise canned air cannot damage the machine.
Then run the pull testThe Pull Test: The Cure for Loops on the Underside of Fabric
4. Feed dogs
Remove your needle plate and examine your feed dogs, especially the grooves between the teeth. It’s a prime area for compacted lint. Clean between the feed dogs with canned air or a lint brush.
Why does this matter? I’ve seen machines come in because they aren’t feeding fabric well. The feed dogs look low, barely rising above the needle plate, so no wonder they can’t grip the fabric. But when I take off the needle plate, there’s compacted lint in the feed dogs, so much that it’s pushing the needle plate upward. The feed dogs aren’t low; the needle plate is high. Removing that lint should improve feed dog height, though further adjustment may still be needed. That’s why you want to prevent compacted lint in the first place.
5. Needle threader
At the heart of your machine’s needle threader is a tiny wire hook that passes in and out of the needle eye. As you can see below, lint can get caught around that tiny hook. When it does, there’s a good chance your needle threader won’t work, because the lint keeps the hook from catching the thread. Blow out your needle threader with canned air occasionally to prevent buildup.
Read the full articleHow to Use a Needle Threader
Summary
- The most effective way to clean a sewing machine is pressurized air.
- Compacted lint beneath the bobbin case and around the hook mechanism is a very important area to clean.
- Lint trapped between the tension discs (upper and bobbin case) is just as important.
- Also clean between the feed dogs and around the needle threader.
Lint brushes
Also part of the skipped stitches flow chartSkipped Stitches Troubleshooting Flow Chart
More troubleshooting
