Threading An Industrial Sewing Machine (Video)
How you load the bobbin and thread an industrial sewing machine is very different than a domestic sewing machine. But don’t let that stop you from experimenting with one! After all, industrial sewing machines give speed, strength, and capacity that makes industrial sewing machines different.
If you wan to learn how to load the bobbin and thread a domestic sewing machine, I have a post for that too!
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Hey everyone,
I’m going to show you how to properly thread an industrial sewing machine. I’m talking about the upper thread, the bobbin thread. How to load everything so it sews perfectly and smoothly every time.
The very first thing you want to do when you’re thread an industrial sewing machine is load your bobbin; that’s this little tiny metal spool and this comes with your machine.
What you have to do is make sure you get the exact proper one that’s for your machine. If there’s a little variance – if it’s a little bit taller, a little bit more a narrow, a little bit wider – you will have error.
Here we’re going to take the same thread that we’re using on the top of our machine and load it into this bobbin.
Put your thread onto your big spool pin back here and run it up through one of the top thread guides. Then I bring my thread through the thread guide at the back, and then through that tension disk.
Give it a nice little pull to make sure it’s secure in that tension disk, and we’ll pull it across. Then hold your bobbin– I love the ones with the holes in them, I much prefer those. I would recommend looking for those as long as they’re suitable for your machine.
And our studio director had told me a great tip; she tells all of her students, ‘You want to pretend that this is an Oreo Cookie. You have the cookie top, the cookie bottom, and the cream filling. And everyone always goes for the cream first. So bring your thread, go for the cream center first, then up the cookie top, and pull that thread out the top.’
Put it onto– put your bobbin onto the bobbin winder, make sure it’s secure in place and then push this little button forward. That engages your bobbin winder.
What you want to do is make sure there’s no needle in your machine; turn off the power, take out the needle, maybe even take out the presser foot. There’s no way of disengaging these needles, so you don’t want anything flying or breaking.
So flick your power back on. I prefer to hold my finger right here and wrap the thread around the front. So you’re going to do about ten or so spins right around the front like this.
And see how the thread has wrapped around itself up at the front. Now what happens is when I cut off my thread at the side– now you want absolutely no thread poking through whatsoever.
So I would give this thread a nice tug out toward the right, then bring your scissors as close as you possibly can to cut right, right down. As long as you’re pulling that thread when you clip it, it will kind of suck right up and you won’t have any loose threads whatsoever.
So the next thing you do is you continue winding. As you’re winding, if there are any gaps at all in here, just use your finger to help fill in those holes. What you want is for your thread to be straight across the entire way.
And you just keep going until you’re about a millimetre or two – a sixteenth of an inch – away from the top of your bobbin. It will go on its own naturally, but do use your fingers to help guide it to make sure it’s absolutely perfect.
Once your bobbin is perfect, like this, it’s nice and dense and tight, because you’ve gone through that tension disk. You don’t want it to be spongy at all. If so, you’ll have to pull it out and remove it. Then just cut your thread and you’re ready to pull this off. So we’ll disengage the bobbin winder and then pull this off like that.
Once you have everything disengaged, it’s time to load your bobbin into your bobbin case. Hold your bobbin case in your left hand. You can hold onto this little arm extension right here and you want that hole to be up at the top.
So hold that in your left hand, bring your bobbin thread in your right hand – you want the thread coming toward you – and then you just pop that right in place.
So this is very different from – almost opposite from a domestic machine. So if you’re doing this on a regular home sewing machine, don’t listen to what I’m doing. You will be doing it very differently.
Slide the thread down into this groove that you’ll see right here. And then bring it down even more to clip it into this groove. You’ll hear it twist and click. So it comes right through that hole.
When you look at this face up, so that hole — this opening right here is the top — when you’re holding this toward you, you want it to turn counter-clockwise. This is completely opposite from if you are sewing from a domestic machine. If you’re loading a domestic front-load, don’t listen to this on a regular home sewing machine. This is only for industrial.
So you hold this up, facing you; it turns counter-clockwise, now it’s good to go. I would take this thread cut it down to about four or five inches or 10 centimetres. Now your bobbin is loaded, we’re ready to put it into the machine.
Once your bobbin is loaded with thread, you want to put it into the machine. You can slide out this faceplate like this so you have a better view, and your bobbin case loads in underneath your machine. So kind of crouch down underneath beside the table, have a look through here, pop it right up. You want that opening to be up at the top, and you just fit that nice and snug. You might hear a click or you might not, depending on your machine, but just give it a push to make sure it’s snug.
Next thing you want to do is thread your machine. Put your thread onto your big spool pin back here and run it up through one of the top thread guides in this box.
All of these thread guides just work to just slow down your thread and keep it going nice and smooth. So then there are some thread guides up at the top of the machine, you’re going to go through those, run through this upper tension disk.
I like to come through and kind of pull it forward like a bit of dental floss, just to make sure it’s in there nice and securely, and then out the next thread guide.
Make sure that you have this end cut nice and sharp so that it’s easy to thread in and out. This one right up here, some people like to go in and out three times; basically, however you feel most comfortable with it, just to keep it slowing down your thread as you go.
Then come down through this tension disk. You’re going to wrap around and bring it back to catch on this little spring right here. Once it’s caught on the spring, come down through this thread guide, bring it back through that one.
And then advance your hand wheel to bring your take-up lever all the way up, so that you can go right to left through that take-up lever.
There’s a thread guide down on the left-hand side, often one near the needle, and then you’re going to go through the needle from left to right. Once your thread it through the needle, put it between the presser foot and the throat plate and bring it out back. Leave about six to eight inches – ten centimeters or more – running out the back.
Once your machine is threaded, we want to bring that bottom thread up to the top; that is between the presser foot and the throat place, just like your top thread. Put your left hand here. I want you to leave that there the entire time.
What you’ll do is lower and raise the take-up lever once. So bring it all the way down and all the way back up. Once that’s all the way up, underneath your presser foot and throat plate, you’ll see a little loop and that is your bobbin thread. So you can stick your scissors, your sewing gage, anything under here and scoop that out. There we go. Close this up. And you’re good to go.
And there it is. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Find me and ask your sewing questions. I’ll answer them in an upcoming video.
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