Saturday, May 12, 2012

Stuck Buttons on Brother 270

On the Brother 260 and 270, the fair isle button should push down by itself, or for thread lace, you push in both buttons instead.  On my 270 last week, I discovered that the fair isle button couldn't depress by itself - it took the thread lace button with it, and I couldn't make fair isle; I could only make thread lace.

I've seen this problem before, on other peoples' carriages.  See both buttons depressed?  This is all it would do - no fair isle, just thread lace.

First, I clicked on the buttons over and over and tried holding the cams on the back while popping buttons to see if I could get it to loosen up.  Then I took it to John.

John played with a while, cleaning it out and lubricating it, with no success.  Before setting it aside, he gave it a shot of penetrating oil -
He used the skinny straw applicator to get the oil in between the two buttons, then set the carriage aside and told me he'd have to disassemble it later, when he got time, because the two buttons were still stuck together.  We hurried off to the benefit event we had, and then today, I had knit club.

When I got home from knit club, I saw the carriage sitting on the kitchen counter and idly punched in the button - just wondering if John had gotten a chance to work on it.  Yes!  The button is working again!  John told me he never did work on it, but the penetrating oil simply took a while to loosen it up.  And here it is, capable of fair isle again with just the top button depressed:


5 comments:

  1. Beata Te per il mio l'olio non รจ bastato devo per forza smontarlo

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're right, Vanda, I was very fortunate this worked. We actually expected to have to disassemble the carriage to fix it.

    I shared it, hoping it will help someone else, including a good friend of mine who has the same stuck button.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I bought my used bulky machine, I had the same problem. I took it to my dealer and she did disassemble it and clean it out really well. The problem is old, gunky oil that gets lint from the yarn trapped in it, as well as dirt and dust. The penetrating oil idea is a good one (and cheaper!) Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the tip - a little lube fixed our KH260 carriage the same way!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you! Same problem fixed!!!

    ReplyDelete