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Thread Cutter won't adjust to cut


SandyK

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Hi there,

 

We are trying to adjust the thread cutter on my Millie. Brenda sent us instructions today. The first thing they say to do is manually rotate the thread puller arm shaft. It won't move. Ok, next we did tighten up the gold screws considerably until he was afraid to go any further. We were able to get a 1 out of 4 cut. Is there an adjustment for the thread puller itself. Maybe it isn't taking the thread over far enough.

 

Also, how tight can you actually tighten those little gold screws. The instructions were careful to say not too tight. Can you tighten until they won't go any further??

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Sandy

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Hi Sandy,

 

To manually rotate the thread puller arm, you need to sneak your fingers into the cutter mechanism area from the front, and reach toward the opposite end of that long piece you see that has the "knuckle joint" on the front end. Since the two pieces work like the bars that you see across the wheels of a train, you won't easily get the front end of that bar to rotate for you unless you first coax the back end of the bar "over the hump" and get it started swinging around. Once you move the back end a bit, you'll be able to move the front end of the joint to manually place the cutter's puller arm under the two blades.

 

Between the two flat cutter blades (where you're adjusting the gold screws) there are teeny little washers that have waves across them (have you ever seen a "wave blade for a rotary cutter? they are like that only really, really little.). There are 3-4 of them stacked on top of each other between the blades. Since they have those waves or ruffles in them, they put a little "spring" between the back ends of those two cutter blades.

 

As you tighten the gold screws, you end up squishing those washers together. That in turn makes the front ends of the blades (the cutting portion) spread apart farther. As you loosen the gold screws, the springy action of the washers takes over and they press the back ends of the blades apart. This, then, makes the front ends of the blades come closer together.

 

If the cutter isn't cutting, then the usual problem is that the gold screws are too tight and are squishing those washers down, opening up the two cutter blades. When they're too far apart then as the puller arm takes the thread between the two sharp blade front ends, the blades aren't close enough to slice the thread. The puller arm needs to sneak between the two blades, but with only enough clearance so that the thread itself gets sliced by the sharp edges of the blades.

 

Here's a video link that might help:

 

APQS Tutorial: Thread Cutter Adjustments

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Hi Dawn,

Thanks so much for the quick reply. I think we got it working properly now. For us, I think the key was adjusting the gold screws in small increments. We thought we had done that before, but apparently went too far. The video was great and hopefully it will help others too.

 

Have a great weekend!

Sandy

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