Cleaning a VS shuttle

Think your VS shuttle is broken?  Maybe it is just gunked up.  It is super easy to clean them.  I have never met one that did not need to be cleaned, btw.

dirty, crusty, slightly rusty shuttle

(Shown is a Singer VS shuttle.  The VS shuttles for the VSII, 27, 28, 127 and 128 are all similar.  There are earlier ones that may also be similar but these are the models I have had my hands on.  I have also cleaned shuttles from other brands and they were also similar).

shuttle cleaning kit

What you need:

• a dirty shuttle
• a very tiny screwdriver.  these were original equipment with your vintage sewing machine so you may have one.
• a magnetic parts bowl (optional, but if you lose the tiny screw you are, well, screwed)
• cotton swabs
• alcohol (either rubbing alcohol from the drug store or denatured alcohol from the hardware store
• 400 grit sandpaper
• a small flashlight (or the flashlight on your phone)

The shuttle only has three parts:  the shuttle, the tiny screw, and the spring on the top.  Use the screwdriver to remove the screw.  Do this inside the magnetic parts bowl if you don't want to lose the screw.

Remove the screw.

And the spring lifts up and off. Two tiny tabs fit into two tiny slots at the top of the shuttle.  These will be shown in more detail below when we put it back together.

Here we have the two dirty, gunky and rough-ish parts.

Normally I would drop these into a pill bottle containing alcohol and let them soak overnight. Alcohol does a great job at dissolving old dried up sewing machine oil.  But today was a "do it quick and take pictures for the blog" day.

The screwdriver points to the main area of gunk build up.  

The gunk forms a pad of lint similar to that you find underneath the bobbin area of many sewing machines, or packed into the feed dogs.

I used both the cotton swabs dipped in alcohol and the tiny screwdriver to remove the gunk.

Use small pieces of the 400 grit sandpaper to remove rust and corrosion from the outside of the shuttle and from both sides of the spring.  400 grit is very fine.

The surface should feel very smooth to the touch when you are finished.  It is not necessary to sand it down until it is bright and shiny, just smooth.

Update:  Cindy Peters wrote to tell me:  "New springs are available for Singer shuttles and may work on others. A bit expensive at $8 but still cheaper than a whole new shuttle!!"

Cindy Peters, Stitches in Time
stitchesintime@earthlink.net
914 No High Street, Lake City, MN 55041

Roll up a piece of sandpaper to clean the inside of the shuttle.  A flashlight will show you what is going on in there.  This was the most time consuming part because I had to keep looking to see what remained to be done.

Smashing down the lower end of the paper will sand the bottom of tubular inside of the shuttle.

Also sand the groove that the thread goes through.  then turn the sandpaper and sand the other side of the groove.

This particular shuttle still looks funky but it is now nice and smooth.  Time to reassemble it.

The two tabs fit into the two tiny slots.

With the tabs in the slots, the spring will lie flat against the shuttle.

Replace the screw.

The screw also allows you to adjust the bobbin tension.

Fiddle with the shuttle tension until it feels just right:  not too loose, not too tight.  This is not rocket science.

Follow your owners manual or find a good YouTube video if you need help loading the shuttle.  I always think a certain amount of magic is involved.

This particular shuttle works beautifully now in the Singer 28 that you will probably see in the next blog post.

Do you regularly clean any shuttles that come your way?  Do you have any additional tips for us?

NC TOGA day five

Saturday is the last day of the TOGA.  The minute I walked in the door Carolyn came up to tell me that she woke up thinking about the little Fleetwood.  So that went home with her and I ended up selling all of the machines that I had brought.

We also exchange quilt blocks made on our people powered machines (treadles and hand cranks).  Ginger and family sorted them out.  I have her permission to show this photo of her daughter.  I mention this EVERY TIME because we all need to be careful about posting photos of children and young persons on the web.

My formerly imaginary friend Elizabeth stopped at IKEA on her way to the TOGA and picked up lights for her quilting friends.  She found one for me that is a near perfect match for Shield Maiden.

I really needed a light for this machine too. It lives in the antique sewing machine museum, AKA the living room and the ott lights just don't fit in with the decor.  This is the machine that sewed all my exchange blocks this year, btw.

We finish up around noonish with a raffle.  There were many wonderful things that I did not win, but I did take home two Singer slant shank buttonholers, one Jetson pink and one of the later ones with 20 templates.

And I won a Singer 99.  Because I need more sewing machines, right?

Great TOGA and I am already looking forward to next year.

NC TOGA day four

Lovely drive to the TOGA through the wheat and corn fields of North Carolina.  Reminds me of home back in Ohio and not the crops that first spring to mind when you think of NC.  Tobacco is not gone, but it is no longer massively subsidized by the federal government.

Today is a big day.  Many people just come for today and tomorrow, some just for today.  Lots of sewing, chatting, buying and selling.

I sold all of the machines that I brought except for the little Fleetwood.  My price on that one is set at "this is what it would take to pry it out of my hands".  I would not have been surprised if it had sold and am equally unsurprised that it did not sell.  I'll be glad to take it back home with me.

And I bought two machines from Melissa.  Quite a deal, actually.  I gave her 4 vintage sewing books and $8.  She gave me a Singer 66 in rough shape and a potentially pretty mint green 15 clone.  It's deals like this that keep my house overflowing with sewing machines.  Both will be converted to hand cranks and the 66 will be extravagantly painted and decaled--- my current obsession.

Vicki bought two machines from me to go with her collection of Singer 15s.  A 15-125 and a very old 15-20 something.

Sherry bought a 301.  And I have arranged with Ann to sell her another 301 I have in a cabinet the next time she drives by my little town.

I bought a rose embossed case from Nanette for my Kenmore 1040 to replace its slightly broken case.  

The church sanctuary was draped in quilts as usual, all at least partially made on a hand crank or treadle.

Went out to dinner with the gang and I took a photo but never got the chance to ask if it was OK with everyone to show their pictures.  So I'm not.

This last photo is for my friend Pam in Texas who sent me a vintage pincushion that her grandmother had made that is exactly like this.  Very beautiful.

Tomorrow is the last day of the TOGA.

NC TOGA day three

This morning was the usual trip to Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia.  I was there two weeks ago with SIL Patty, Queen of the Enablers.  I've lost count of how many sewing machines she has found for me---4---5---6?  So anyhow I slept in and made it to Mary Jo's just in time to go out to lunch with the gang.

After lunch was the usual trip to Long Creek Mills.  I missed this at the two previous TOGAs I attended but today I finally made it.  They are a wholesale (I think) thread distributor.  

People who have seen my studio will laugh heartily to learn that I bought a bunch of thread.  But they won't be surprised.  I love thread.  I have 12 of those wooden thread racks mounted on one wall.  Nine for regular sewing thread and three for poly embroidery thread.  another four for serger thread over the door.  The rest of the thread (special construction thread, non-poly embroidery) is in four drawers of a sewing machine cabinet.  It's all about having what I need when I need it without having to go to the store.

And yes, I HAVE been promising various people pictures of my studio for years.  Someday.  Really.  

I bought giant industrial size cones of stuff I use all the time and small spools of metallic and variegated pretties on sale.  The bright gold in the foreground is my go to color for machine quilting.  Somehow almost every quilt I make NEEDS to be quilted in bright gold.

I also bought two giant rolls of interfacing/stabilizer, thick and heavy duty.  $5 each, how could I not?  Probably should have bought more.  Di and Susan kindly toted them out to my van in the broiling NC sun.  Di says this weight is perfect for placemats, which my spell checker initially tried to persuade me should read "placenta".  I will use them for the purse project that has been simmering in the back of my mind for at least a decade.  Could get dozens of purses from all this.  Or it will sit in my studio for another decade.  It won't spoil.

The car keys on top give you an idea of size.

In the bad news department, four, count them FOUR, people that I was really looking forward to spending time with either can't make it at all this year or will only be here on Friday.  But there will always be another TOGA next year and three of them I will get to see in NonTOGA locations.

BTW, does anybody else have problems charging electronic devices in hotel rooms?  They are VERY slow to charge and quick to lose the charge.   Is Monroe in some kind of electromagnetic vortex?  Happens every time I come here.

I did discover several years ago why hotel room coffeemakers make such dreadful coffee.  It isn't necessarily the coffe itself because I brought my own coffee and it was just as bad.  They just don't get hot enough.  Is this related to the device-charging problem?

Now I bring a filter basket that sits on top of a cup--my own ceramic cup--and heat the water in the microwave.

Because coffee really, really matters.  Even more than thread.

NC TOGA day two

'Hey, my iPad keyboard has reappeared!  Whoo hoo!  No more talking slowly and getting names wrong!  

Linda with the Singer 12 in yesterday's post is really Lynda.  And Edna was there too but I did not get her photo.

One of the TOGA traditions is to put a sewing machine in the window.  Most of us stay in the same hotel and it helps us find each other.  It works, too, several people have stopped by.  I think the reflection selfie is a nice touch.

Today was a chill out day for me.  Last year I had a health meltdown mid week that ruined much of the fun.  This year I am trying to take it easy and go the distance.  So I skipped Edna's classes today.  Slept in until 10.  Talked on the phone to Linda (spelled correctly) for an hour.  Got coffee and doughnuts (yeah, right, I do know how healthy THAT Is).  Drove around and hit a couple of thrift stores---because that is my life.

Found nice pieces of what I call REAL batik, what batik looked like for centuries before millions of quilters decided they had to have it and it got dumbed down in the mass production process. 

The selvedge says "Super Puissance Wax".  Puissance is a word that I could both spell upon hearing or pronounce upon seeing without having the slightest idea what it means.  The joys and perils of geekdom.  I will be googling it upon finishing this post.

Definitely produced for the African market, either in Africa or India.  Indonesian batiks are distinctly different (still talking about the real ones, btw).

I do like modern quilting batiks and the fabric quality is very good, but they look nothing like this.  I like social science too (I am a geographer by disposition and training) but I don't confuse the social science  side of the house with SCIENCE.  (Actually physical geography does do real science, we are a schizophrenic discipline).

Back to the hotel for more chilling out and having fruit for lunch, thus restoring my self-esteem.  Just kidding, I like fruit as much as I like doughnuts and I pretty much ignore my self-esteem.  Life is so much easier that way.

Maria showed up to claim 3 of my sewing machines:  Singer 201, Adler Belvedere, and the little National with a makeshift hand wheel knob.  

Out to dinner.  Nothing quite as raucous as a group of (mostly) old ladies.  Overheard down the table:  "you are not having enough sex".  Kind of surprising because it is really not that kind of raucous.

Turns out s.e.x. means Stash Enhancing eXperience.  

NC TOGA day one

 Today was the first day of the North Carolina toga.  today was devoted to working on machines.

Susan lead a beginning repair class. 

Here's Linda with the singer 12 she bought from me.  I think the photo captures her look of adoration very well.

Four of us brought Davis vertical feeds to work on.  this machine belongs to kitty and has the best Davis decals I have ever seen. Somehow I failed to get a picture of Kitty.

Gay Sharon had a gorgeous small handcrank machine. Another photo I missed.

  Here's Maria Dremel ing away.

And Melissa doing the same.

I sat next to Carolyn and we both worked on Davises.

Here are Ann and Linda intent on their machines.

Susan's grandson Wyatt was very helpful in carrying heavy objects in and out of the room.

I wrote this whole thing using the voice feature on my iPad. What a pain in the neck. never again.