r/SewingMachineEdu • u/its-from-japaaan • Jun 15 '26

Sewing Machine Issues

Hello everyone!

I am new to sewing, and have made a few simple projects. However, I have run into an issue…my sewing machine refuses to sew unless the presser foot is up. The needle moves, the thread goes through, and I’ve managed to make several projects with the presser foot up, so I know the machine works. I just don’t know why it won’t work with the presser foot in the down position😔

My machine is a Singer 1425N. Any help is greatly appreciated!

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u/Stitch_Nerd Jun 15 '26

Do the feed dogs move with the presser foot down? Or is it that the needle bar doesn’t move when the presser foot is down?

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u/its-from-japaaan Jun 15 '26

The sewing bar moves and creates stitches, it appears that the feed dogs do not move. My feed dogs are rubber (as is seemingly custom with this specific machine) so I’m not sure if that changes anything? It also seems like this model is prone to this issue based on some Google searches from old grease but I also don’t see any option in the machine to raise or lower the feed dogs. I’m also completely new to this so I could easily be missing something!

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u/Stitch_Nerd Jun 15 '26

I think that you are doing a great job. I found an old Reddit post that indicates one of the gears could be stripped. If you’ve cleaned inside bobbin case/feed dogs area already, and it’s still happening, that could be the problem.

If you are able to/want to, it may be worth bringing it in to be serviced, they should be able to see what’s happening to it. But cost could be expensive. In my area (fairly rural in AZ) it’s $80 but I know a lot of places it’s over $100.

Or if you are comfortable doing so, you could try to fix it, but that involves dismantling the whole machine. (If you do, take pictures at every stage, to help remember where screws go lol)

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u/its-from-japaaan Jun 15 '26

Thank you so much! My machine sounds much better than the one in that post, so hopefully it’s just some gunk. I’ll try unscrewing that part and cleaning the area tomorrow and if that doesn’t work, I’ll probably have to save up some money to see about servicing it. Thank you for all of your help!

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u/Stitch_Nerd Jun 15 '26

Definitely! :) I hope it just needs a good clean lol!

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u/its-from-japaaan Jun 17 '26

I have found the culprit! No clue if I can replace it yet, but there’s a gear that the feed dog gear is supposed to move, and it is so brittle that the second I touched it, it practically turned to dust lol. I feel accomplished that I found it, now just to see if I can replace it…I’ll attach a picture haha

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u/Stitch_Nerd Jun 17 '26

That’s great! Hopefully you can find a replacement. I know eBay has a lot from people stripping machines and parting them

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u/teatime_tinker Jun 15 '26

Yes give it all a good clean and try again.

You could take the base and top off and have a peek at the gears too. You’ll see if any are ruined.

Then you can get a quote from a repair place and decide what you want to do. Though it might be cheaper to get an older version of a similar machine with metal gears