Pfaff 30 Update

The cord for the Pfaff 30 arrived yesterday. Found and bought it from Sharp Sewing Supplies in California. Pfaff 30 uses the same plug as her sister, Pfaff 130.

Now it's time to clean and oil Pamela, my new-to-me Pfaff 30.  She was fairly clean and dry.  These are the photos before cleaning.

It didn't take much time at all to clean and oil her. Cleaned her and polished her.

 

One of the goodies in the Pfaff tin was this packet of needles.

It was nearly full, and I took out a new one and replaced the one that was on the machine.

Took a while fiddling with the tension. Adjusted both upper and lower several times. It might have been a different story if I let her sit overnight to let the oil penetrate a bit before I tried to put her to work. But I couldn't wait.  The very last row on both fabrics is the final result. Not bad.

She is strong and fast!!  Of course not as fast as industrial machines, but almost. Probably the fastest machine I have. Is it supposed to be that fast? Is that the famous capacitor issue in the motor? Do I need to take the motor apart to see what's going on, and get rid of the capacitor? Any other Pfaff 30 owners out there??

Knee control - not my favorite, but that's what she came with. The response isn't precise. I'd prefer a bit more precise response. If I want the machine to go just one more stitch, I'd like to be able to do so. With this machine the way it is right now, I can't.  She sews just a few more stitches after I let go of the knee lever. 

But very strong with 1.3 amp. I will definitely take her out when I have very thick material to sew. Even when she has to go up and down the layers of denim fabric and even if she can't climb up quickly by herself, her motor won''t quit or groan. With just a little help, she keeps on going.

Speaking of cleaning, one of my girlfriends was having some stitch skipping issues with her "old" sewing machine. I went to look at it. As it has never been cleaned since she bought it in the 80's  (and I knew she did a fair amount of sewing), I offered to clean and oil her machine.  

It turned out to be a Singer 6233. With an air pedal. I've never seen one with a Singer. I've seen Elna with air pedal that another girlfriend of mine has, but not with a Singer.  This is a made-in-Taiwan model with nylon gears. As soon as I saw it, I was going to suggest to her that she should ditch it and consider buying a solid vintage machine for not much money.  (She said she felt like she stopped sewing because her machine didn't cooperate with her well.  Uh ha.  I know how that goes.  Exactly what happened to me before I met my current main sewing machine.) 

But, I decided to give it a benefit of the doubt and clean her anyway. Nothing to lose.

Oy. Ok. Never been cleaned. There was more on the drop-in bobbin area.  After cleaning and oiling, she actually was sewing pretty well.  So my girlfriend is going to hold onto it for a while.

We had another girlfriend who brought her "broken" Kenmore today. Friends, on this one, I had to tell her that I'll find her a very good vintage sewing machine for under $50 that will meet all her needs and that she should put R.I.P. on her current Kenmore machine.  It was a sad, sad, plastic-all-the-way model, poorly designed with very unfriendly user interfacae, again probably from the 80's. I didn't even take a photo...... Sorry, girlfriend. But I will find you a new one that you'll be very happy with. Very soon.

Anyhow. My Pfaff 30 is well and strong.