I've just come back from a day of learning the proper care and feeding of my longarm machine. I have had quite a bit of hand on experience with it so I was expecting to largely pick up little tips. It turned out that there was one piece of maintenance I hadn't been doing at all and if left can turn expensive. Given you are supposed to check the motor brushes every year and I've never done mine we figured it was about time. From the look on Marks face I got the impression it was a sooner rather than later kind of job. so I came home and took mine out.
The handout says they start 1/2" long and if your are only 3/8" you need to replace them. I tried measuring mine and it seemed to be 1/2" so I figured the best was to be sure was to compare it with the new one I got today. Mine is the top one in the picture. It's clearly worn, although not as badly as we had feared. This is fortunate as I have a quilt on the frame and I really didn't want to have to clean out the motor with a quilt on. I would have done it if the wear had been really extreme but I am comfortable with leaving this for another 10 hours then doing a through job. I will also finally get my gearbox done. Neither job takes long and they do make a huge difference to the machine. We got to repack Chris's machine today and it was amazing how different it sounded.
I think the best thing I got today was a kick up the backside, these jobs are quick, easy and will keep my machine giving me good service. What is my excuse for not doing them?
3 comments:
Your excuse? They sound like such things to do, you are leaving them until you have a chance to really savour doing them?
Good grief, had to be a bloke have a go at you, what does he think you are...a mechanic?? No seriously, a good lesson learned methinks. I am lucky that hubby takes care of my machine for me. Not a long arm...I wish!
I hope Mark might think I am a mechanic. I am quite a good one if I say so myself. I find far more problems with men assuming I am stupid and using baby language to explain things. I just didn't spot that I was supposed to be checking these brushes. It really is very easy so I think I will go with Pennys excuse. I wanted to savour the jobs.
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