Your sewing machine having problems? Watch THESE Videos! Learn MORE about your Sewing Machines! Watch these videos and help your machines work better! Tech (Tek) Tips from a Sewing machine service Tech with over 50 years of experience on all brands of household and industrial sewing machines of all types. Sharing some knowledge to help you with tips, tricks, and more.
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Good morning. I am so glad I stumbled upon this video!! My thread keeps breaking and fraying. The local sewing machine repair shop changed their hours. So how they expect us working folks to come in is mind boggling!! I am going to give this a try!! Never thought it was a thread problem. I am going to give this a try!! Thanks so much!! I will subscribe!!
If you still have the thread breakage or fraying, check to make sure there aren’t any scars from needle strikes in the needle hole of your needle plate.
Great! I have another problem. The plastic cones inside my rather cheap overlock thread crumble after a few years. I have tried stuffing them with toilet rolls shaped to conical shape, but this isn’t very successful. Any ideas? Thanks for your videos!
I’m going to try this. When my relatives pass away I always get their thread and I am afraid it was so old that it would break. This is the first time I have heard this…thanks❤
Old brittle thread will not get better by using this technique or any. Just like clothing, thread can dry rot. Using old and brittle threads can cause issues with your sewing machines as well.
Actually, a lot of testing has been done that proves it works for both strength and less lint on all home sewing machine threads except the monofilament and sliver threads
@@jandhtektips Testing was done on old brittle threads to make them strong enough to use to make garments that you would wear? Wow! Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it true. But to think about it, there are different generations speaking on this topic so a younger person grandmother may be my age…my grandmother would be over 100 years old and thread from my grandmother age is not getting rejuvenated with a sponge in a ziplock bag. 100 year old thread as dry rot if not taken care of through the years.
I was was the one that did the testing on all types and ages of threads and developed this technique before I posted the info. Thanks for watching my video.
Guess I’ve been living in a tree for the last 80 + years. This is the first time I’ve heard that moisture in old thread needed to be restored. I taught myself to sew mostly from trial and error with help from PBS programs decades ago. That drawer full of thread in my sewing room might benefit. I’ll give it a try.
This is great! I have not heard of this before but will sure be doing to my array of old threads. Thanks so much for sharing. Take care and blessings to y'all.
But how old is "old thread"? Is a year old?? 2 years? More? And how do you know how long the thread sat in a store? New to sewing so I have no idea. I just bought this cone of thread - had it only a week or so - and its constantly breaking. The top thread. But it doesnt make any rats nests.
Question: I have some threads from around early 1930’s on some flat disk-shaped wooden spools with logo of manufacturer stamped on the wood ends along with content. They are silk. I would dearly love to hydrate these lovely coloured threads to use them in the finishing of some garments, but have discovered that they break very easily. Have you tried this with silk that is that old? (I used the manufacturer’s name on the ends to discover about when these were made since there were some mergers around that time and also name changes in the company due to factories being built, sold and bought back.) On a different note, I used to use this method with brown sugar in my foods classroom. Either you have to deal with rock hard brown sugar, or someone has thrown a damp paper towel on top and the water from the towel has “washed” the molasses coating off the sugar and turned it white. (I watched another teacher throw a mostly full tub of sugar away because she thought the white area of sugar meant it had gone bad. I couldn’t get to her fast enough to stop her and my voice wouldn’t have been heard over the classroom noise during the lab that was in progress. Arrrggg!!!) Put damp paper towels in a small plastic bag; leave it open. Put the brown sugar in a large plastic bag…this makes it easier to press the sugar into the measuring cup (supporting the cup portion so you don’t break the handle off) and level it off using the outside of the bag to keep fingers clean. Put the open bag of sugar in a tightly sealing tub and tuck the small open bag down the side between the brown sugar bag and the tub. Check it once in a while. It will keep the brown sugar moist and also rehydrate any sugar that has dried on the store shelves. Of course since Lantic/Roger’s sugar has finished with the strike that occurred last year, there shouldn’t be any old sugar on shelves anywhere round here. Trying to plan labs and acquire ingredients was interesting last year due to all kinds of suppliers and transport going on strike…couldn’t get salt round here at one point. Needed that for labs and to throw in the backs of cupboards to get rid of the silverfish we saw (Not my classroom; I inherited it for 4 months before I decided to retire.).
This video is very general in its information. The manufacturing of thread has changed through the years as has much of the material used in making thread. Its inportant to try to date the thread one has to understand the material used in the thread & even how many pyls/twists are in the thread. Natural fibers are the thread types that can just get so old that the fibers just rot/dry out break down & no water is going to strengthen them. And then some threads that are a man-made fiber of a type of plastic, the old old ones can just become so brittle that no water can strengthen them. It really is about age of the thread & time involved & how they were manufactured & even how they have been stored, affected by temperature & sunlight exposure, that determines if the threads are saveable.
Also, why would water touching thread cause it to discolor? That means you could not wash a garment made with the thread. Then, what happens after you use the thread and it looses the moisture you added? It would be in the same brittle condition. So many questions.
Thank you for the demystification. Question! I have to buy needles online and the current ones are made by Groz-Beckert for use on a fairly old Singer. I have to slightly lower the head of needle from the stop to make it able to “reach” the bobbin thread. This can’t be right. Has years of breaking needles eventually pushed the stop from its rightful place?
Either you have the wrong needle system for your sewing machine, or your needle bar is not set correctly. Before adjusting, the needle system is the first step. You should always install all needles to their top mont position.
Thanks for this tip. Thankfully I live in a moderate climate with enough humidity to keep threads fit for purpose for a long, long time. Please let me be your friendly neighbourhood spell checker for the day: rejuvenate… juventus = youth in latin and re for getting the youth back
I'm skeptical of this because once its used one wouldn't store it in a damp environment. Only natural fibers would be effected and that's just cotton, linen, wool, and silk. It's an interesting concept though and would hydrate them temporarily.
Thank you for the tips. I’m a new Featherweight owner. I just bought a 221 made in 1952, my birth year. I have cleaned and serviced it myself and it’s running great. I learned so much by doing that myself.
Would you do that for anything other than hand sewing? I am new to this and still learning best practices for different methods. Should you wax cotton, linen, silk, polyester, split cotton/polyester, or nylon?
I just wax thread when its become sticky for whatever reason. It works for me for hand sewing, cross-stitch, embroidery, i even use a little clean lotion on my yarns when i am knitting or crocheting when i need to. For sewing machine & their threads specific sewing machines recommend specific lubricants for their machines & then for their threads used. This video is very general in its information.
Putting thread in the freezer does work for the outside thread. The reason it sort of helps is because when the thread comes out of the freezer, it attracts moisture to the outside thread and will moisturize those outside threads. If your thread isn't very old and only the outside threads lack moisture this method will 'fix' the spool.
His remarks of old wives tales is incorrect, it’s based on freezers of that time period which were NOT frost free freezers but the old type that needed defrosting 2-3 times a year due to the ice building up inside. I have an old freezer that has to be defrosted due to the ice that builds up inside over time. I place the threads into an old ice-cream tub leave them in the freezer for 3 days then take them out and leave to come to room temperature and they work fine. Depending on the size of the reels will depend on how often this needs to be done. All the threads that I inherited off my Mom are in plastic boxes and as such I can place a small container with foam in it that has been dunged into water. It keeps the threads from drying out and no water touches the threads. I live in Australia in the Outback, during the summer months the moister is sucked out of everything around so unlike the cities around the coastal areas that keep damp-rid in the cupboards we do the opposite to keep moister in the air to stop things from getting brittle.
