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You are here: Home / Sewing Machine / Caring For Your Sewing Machine | Learn To Clean And Oil Properly

Caring For Your Sewing Machine | Learn To Clean And Oil Properly

October 18, 2022 By Sewing.com 7 Comments

Did you know that properly caring for your sewing machine won’t even take you more than 10 minutes? Find out how to clean your trusty sewing equipment to keep it in tip-top shape in five easy steps!

Properly Caring for Your Sewing Machine in 5 Easy Steps

After finishing a big sewing project, the victorious sense of overcoming a challenge might keep you from a good clean up of your machine. As a result, lint, small pieces of fabric, and errant threads build up under your needle plate. Eventually, the build-up of dust will slow down your machine and will probably even affect your sewing. Prevent this from happening by being extra careful in cleaning up your machine! Learn more by following this easy step-by-step guide.

 

Vintage white all-metal mechanical sewing machine via @peterlappin #sewingaddict

A post shared by Sewing.com (@sewingdotcom) on Mar 20, 2017 at 4:00am PDT

Materials You’ll Need to Properly Care for Your Sewing Machine:

  • Your Sewing Machine Manual
  • Screwdriver
  • Small Lint Brush
  • Sewing Machine Oil
  • Tweezers

 

Step 1. Disassemble Your Needle Foot and Plate

Disassemble Your Needle Foot and Plate | Caring for Your Sewing Machine
Take all the unnecessary clutter in and around your machine. Take off the fabric, threads, and bobbin installed on your machine. Carefully remove the needle from the foot. Using a screwdriver, remove the plate so you can reach into the deeper parts of your machine.

Step 2. Gently Brush Off the Bottom Bobbin Case

With a lint brush, or any little, fine brush you may have around, gently brush off the lint and dust you can see in your bobbin case. Sweep your brush outwards.

Important Note: Do not use pressurized gas in cleaning your machine! Instead of blowing away the dust and lint, blowing air through your sewing machine only pushes the dirt deeper into the crevices of your machine.

Step 3. Replace the Bobbin Case Cover

After making sure all dust and lint have been brushed off, cover and screw your needle plate back into place. Do not tighten the screws too much or else it would be difficult to unscrew them the next time you clean your machine.

Step 4. Oil Your Machine Properly

Oil Your Machine Properly | Caring for Your Sewing Machine
Properly oiling your machine depends on your machine’s make. Read up on your machine’s manual to learn which parts you should oil to get maximum efficiency. If you don’t have your manual around, you can look for the holes in your machine that don’t have threads on them. Holes with threads are made for screws while the ones without threads are where you usually oil your machine.

You should also add a small drop inside the hook race and to the outer ring of your bobbin hook. Hook race is the silver ring on the inside where your bobbin hook fits into. The outer ring of the bobbin hook is where it slides along the hook race.

Step 5. Test Your Machine Out

Wipe down the surface of your machine and voila! You’re almost done! Replace your needle with a fresh, new one. Turn your machine on and try to run your machine for several minutes. This will spread your oil through all the gears and places it should go. And ta-da! You’re done! Your machine should be running smoother and more efficiently now! Properly thread your sewing machine and start making more sewing projects!

For a more detailed discussion, watch this video from Leah Day:

 

Caring for your sewing machine is easy as 1,2,3! It doesn’t even take up much time and the benefits last much longer. With a machine that runs smoother and faster, you can keep on doing more sewing projects. Aside from that, you can save a lot of money by doing the easy steps a professional cleaner does. Try to do it today and see the improvement right away!

 

Want to learn how to buy a sewing machine fit for you? Check out the 7 Things to Know When Buying a Sewing Machine! Do you have other tips for caring for your sewing machine? Let us know in the comments below!

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Editor’s Note – This article has been originally posted on March 4, 2016, and has since been updated for quality and relevancy.

Featured Image via Colette

Filed Under: Sewing Machine, Sewing Machine Tips

Comments

  1. mary vitela says

    April 14, 2016 at 8:51 PM

    Very interesting

    Reply
  2. Kaye Grimes says

    April 20, 2016 at 8:16 PM

    I would live to win this sewing machine

    Reply
  3. frances says

    April 23, 2016 at 9:43 AM

    thats a fantastic machine

    Reply
  4. Sue Ratcliff says

    April 24, 2016 at 10:05 PM

    My sewing machine is a computerized m as chime and the manual says not to use sewing machine oil …. could you do a tutorial on cleaning a machine that says do not use oil

    Reply
    • AMom says

      June 30, 2018 at 1:08 PM

      I took my “Do not oil” machine into the repair man because it quit working. He asked if I had ever oiled it. Of course I said no, because I read I was not supposed to. He tried to fix it. Bottom line. Oil it along the bobbin area and around when you clean, or put oil on a brush and use that when cleaning. Keep “a lot of oil” from the tech parts of your machine. Your machine will quit working correctly without oil and become useless.

      Reply
  5. [email protected] says

    October 29, 2020 at 2:10 AM

    This is great! When I clean my machine, I use a long skinny paint brush. It really gets to those hard to reach areas and the dust bunnies stick to the brush.

    Reply
  6. Cee says

    December 24, 2021 at 12:15 PM

    Thank you for a Great Video explaining cleaning your sewing machine!

    Reply

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