The Finesse 833

 

 

This is an interesting machine. When I first saw it, on the shelf in a thrift store, I thought it was a Singer 500 series machine. But it isn't. It's a Polish knock off, made in Poland in the 1990s and it has a curious history.

Once I had figured out that Finesse was the name of the line, not a model designation, I went looking for info on it. Couldn't find a darn thing about them. Then, I remembered Alex Askarov who lives in the UK and asked him if he knew anything about them. Turns out, he does. He tells me that the machine was made in many different models under license from Singer and sold well, world wide.

However, there was a problem...The factory that made them, had never built anything like a sewing machine before and they inadvertently made the very strong drive belt too tight. This apparently resulted in about 30% of the motors burning out and killed the brands reputation.

That's too bad, it's a decent, easy to use machine.

The Tingler!

 

Pink, more pink and purple, the Tingler is here!

This Brother Tingler 031, came by for service this morning. The owner wants me to get it going before he puts it up for sale..

I've never seen one of these, so I suspect they are kind of rare. It looks to be a decent old school straight stitcher with a 140 watt motor so it should be a powerful machine.

Boy is it pink though! My eyes are trying to cope with that much pink.......

The Brother SQ9050 exposed

 Computerized sewing machines are difficult to understand if you have only dealt with mechanical machines. They rely on optical sensors, timing belts and computer logic.

This one came to me with the dreaded E1 error message. This error is particularly frustrating because the machine is telling you that the presser foot is up when it's obviously down. It locks up the entire machine and you can't do anything with it at all.

The solution requires that you take the front cover off of unit (carefully) and apply about 3 drops of oil to the pivot pin that the pressure foot position indicator level is attached to. That's all it really requires, but how many people are willing to take the cover off and deal with the electronics? This machine got it's three drops of oil and now operates perfectly.

It's kind of fascinating though to see this view of the machine, running with the front cover removed....