Uh. Woops.

This is a little story about how I really messed things up. Now, this happened back in November, several months ago. I'm not very punctual on the blogging, but I'm sharing so that others can hopefully learn from my mistakes. It all started when I was warming up my machine one fine day. When I warm up my machine, I put a few drops of oil in the appropriate spots, remove the bobbin and pull the thread out of the needle and the take up lever and lay it across the top of the machine, and let her go for a few minutes. Well this time, the thread slipped from the vibrations of the machine going, and got caught in the handwheel and in between a tiny crevasse I'm pointing to in the photo below. So much so that it bound up the machine to the point that it couldn't move! I was nearby winding up bobbins and heard the machine slow down and eventually stop working, so I was able to turn it off right away.

Me being me, I decided to take the cover off the machine to see if I could get at the problem easier. I proceed to loosen all the bolts and screws to hopefully get things apart enough that I can get to the thread mess a lot easier. You, know, just get to the area, pull the thread mess off the shaft part, put it all back together, and I'd be back in business in no time! Sure! But I couldn't get to it. By this time my husband was involved in the process, and this is when we called Nolting. And guess what, all the techs were out with Covid! But we were able to talk to someone who could help. The technician confirmed that we were in a mess, we can't take it apart to get to where all the thread was bound up.  Also, because of everyone being out with Covid except for one guy who was very backed up with the workload, it would be a good two weeks or more before they could work on it if I were to bring it in to get fixed. 

So we decided to see if we could get it going on our own. With a little thin bandsaw blade, tweezers, a few cuss words and such, we were able to get all the thread out! All that grey thread in a pile was wound up in that little bitty crack!

Now, the hard part- putting the machine back together! Ugh! I had taken apart everything inside that although I could put it back together, it has to be juuust right in order for the timing to be correct. And tight enough so that it doesn't slip back out of timing. The slightest move of a part can really mess things up! I'd think I'd have it right, then it would skip stitches when moving in a certain direction- away from me and to the right. I watched this youtube video a hundred times, and adjusted my screws a hundred more times, and over the course of over a week or more, and a few broken needles, I eventually got it right!

Ugh. What a nightmare. I was ready to toss the whole thing in a ditch somewhere several times. Yes, it would have saved me a lot of time and anguish if I were able to take it to Nolting right away and have them work on it, (a 4hr. drive one way, a couple hours or so of work, write a hefty check, and another 4 hour drive home. A full day, but I'd be up and running the next day.) but that was not going to happen with the whole Covid/quarantine situation backing things up on their end. But, I guess now I know my machine inside and out, and feel pretty confident that I know what I'm doing when it comes to timing my Nolting CLX. That's one thing I will say about Nolting longarms is that they are workhorses, and yes, you can fix it yourself with some tech help and the right tools, and most importantly, being able to put aside your frustrations. I love my Nolting CLX, it dosen't have a lot of bells and whistles, so in several cases, I can fix it myself! And now I am a lot more careful of where I place my thread when I'm warming up my machine!