A Singer 14U557 Serger Repair

 Last year I got a serger for free. It came with no manual, no needles, and the wrong brand name on it. I had a very frustrating time making it work again so I thought I'd make a blog post about it.

The reason it was free is that it was on the backroom shelf in the shop where I work (I do suit alterations) and the manager was doing some decluttering and said I could take it. We already have a perfectly good industrial serger there that practically never gets used, so there was no reason to have a broken domestic one as well.

My first problem with it was that I couldn't find anything about it online. Not a sniff of a "Reliable Millennium Series" domestic serger anywhere. (I looked around the shop for serger manuals, but it was nowhere to be found.)

From the "Millennium Series" mark I figured it was from about the year 2000, but I couldn't find any indication that Reliable ever even made domestic sergers. Their website only shows industrial sergers and they never responded to my email.

This is the text on the back of the machine but it was no help.

I made a post on tumblr asking for help, and several commenters said it looked like a rebadged Singer 14U557. And so it did! Hooray! 

I had not heard of "rebadging", but apparently that's a thing that happens sometimes, and would explain why the Reliable label was just a rubbery thing stuck on with weak glue. So I peeled that off. 
I don't know what the point of a rebadged machine is and I think it's quite irritating that anyone would do that.

Knowing what make of machine it was didn't help with my main problem, however, which was that the needle holes are ridiculously tiny.

All my standard needle shanks are miles too big. 

I said it came with no needles, but it did actually have the broken stump of one old needle in there, which my manager unfortunately lost. (This was before I'd taken it home.)
But before he lost it I'd taken it to Fabricville in a little bag and compared it to every machine needle they had, and all were much too big. 

I tried ordering 2 different packs of basic Singer serger needles, even though I was skeptical as the shanks looked large in the pictures, and it turned out they were indeed too large. Alas.

I found a store with a list of Singer 14U557 supplies that included DBx1 needles, and ooh, another website that says the width of their shanks is a mere 1.63 mm! How promising!

I ordered DBx1 needles and they were still too big for my serger's stupid tiny holes.
But at least they fit the industrial machine I use at work, so they won't go to waste.

But then! One wonderful tumblr commenter suggested POx1 needles, which have 1.28 mm shanks!

There were very few sites with them listed, and the only place they were actually in stock and available to buy was Aliexpress, where the minimum one could order was 5 packs. (That was 8 months ago and the listing I bought from isn't showing up anymore, but there are search results for a couple others.)

So I bought the 5 packs, and they fit! Finally!! My goodness are they ever narrow. The shanks are round.

Standard needle on the right for comparison.
(The length difference will prove to be a problem later.)

I put a couple of them in the machine, turned the hand wheel, and the lower looper bumped into the needle. I was not in the mood to deal with that at the moment, so I avoided it for the next 8 months, before getting back to it just a few days ago.

I thought there must be something wrong with the alignment, but after some more messing around I discovered that the looper only bumped into the needle when the presser foot was down, which meant the foot was pushing the needle out of place. (And upon further reflection, an alignment problem probably would not cause a needle-looper collision.)

The cause seemed to be that the joint of the foot was too loose and wiggled from side to side, making one bumpy edge of the foot push into the needle. I tried squeezing the foot with pliers to make the joint tighter, but it wouldn't budge and I don't know how it got so loose in the first place. Instead I simply filed the offending foot bump down a bit.

That took care of the needle collision problem, but when I threaded the serger and tested it it still would not chain. 
(I would like to mention that when testing these solutions I first try it with the hand wheel to make sure nothing is colliding, and then when I try it with power I wear safety goggles just in case a needle breaks.)

Still under the impression that I had an alignment problem, I took off some parts of the plastic exoskeleton. In fact, I took off more parts than I needed to, but I did oil all the joints I could while I was in there so it was ok.

I watched a video on fixing serger timing and was still puzzled at first, because it looked like my loopers were more or less in the correct positions. But then I noticed the needles in the video were much higher than mine.

The highest needle position in the video.

And the highest on mine...

Evidently my needles were too long, which made them too low, which meant they weren't catching the threads they were supposed to on the way down.

Raising the needle bar was easy, as the screw that held it in place was accessible from the side where I'd taken the light cover off, and could be loosened with a small allen key.

But unfortunately I couldn't raise it very much - it only had room to go a few millimetres higher than the original position.

It was still not quite enough, and things still weren't catching properly.

So I figured the only thing left to do was try to shorten the needles. They were a good 5 mm longer than the standard ones, so I marked the difference on with marker and tried both a hacksaw and a metal file on it. Unfortunately both tools had about the same effect, which was practically nothing.

So then I tried snapping the top off the shank with 2 pairs of pliers (while wearing safety goggles of course) and it popped off very easily! Hooray!

Now my needles were high enough! In fact, at first they were a little too high and I had to lower them a smidge. 

Around this time I switched to just using one needle.
It took some more fiddling to get things working right. The tension was all wonky and I'd also threaded one part slightly wrong, but eventually I got it! 

WOOHOOOOOO! FINALLY!!!

I may try re-lowering the needle bar sometime, since it's easier to snap off a longer needle nub than a shorter one, but as long as I position the needles at the right height it's fine this way for now.

I have no idea if, somewhere out there in the vast & confusing world of needle sizes, there's one with the same width but a shorter length, and seeing as I already have 5 packs of these I do not care.

I haven't gotten it to work with 2 needles yet, but I also haven't tried very hard because I don't need 2 needles. The second needle is only really important if you're going to use the serger to sew seams, which I have no intention of ever doing. Much better to finish the edges first and then sew the pieces together.

The blade was extremely dull so I removed it. I may try sharpening it on my oilstone someday, but I don't really think I'll need it. I'll only be using this to finish the edges on cut pieces, and the ends of fabric before washing. As long as I'm careful to cut with nice even seam allowances and put the pieces through the machine at a steady distance from the edge it should be fine. 
Plus, it saves me the trouble of having to get 4 cones of thread instead of 3.

There are a couple of other minor broken bits, but they don't affect the functionality. One of the little tabs that holds the scrap catcher on is broken off, but it still stays in place with just the one, and anyways if I don't have a blade I don't need a catcher.

The inner one is broken, but the end is held in by leaning against the machine.

The presser foot lever also has one of its 2 tabs broken off, but it still works fine. I turned it around to have the non-broken one face the front.

The one thing I would like to change is the thread holder attachment, because it's very unstable. It's held in place by one tiny little brass knob thingy that fits into a hole in the plastic casing, and the slightest bump can knock it off, especially if the thread cones are very uneven sizes. 

I don't want to glue it on permanently, as I think that would be bad for storage and transportation, but it would be nice to have a more secure way of clipping it on. Still, not a super high priority for the moment. As long as it's sitting still on a table it shouldn't fall off during regular use.

All in all, I think this serger will suit my needs perfectly! And I'm very glad it was free, as I've paid for it with time, effort, and needle money. Though all together I probably spent about 100 CAD on various needles, which is still only a fraction of the price that sergers usually are.

For most garments I prefer to line or flat fell the seams, but I like using serged edges for pants and pyjama bottoms. Previously I'd use the industrial at work, which is only threaded with black and which always needs to be un-buried from the stack of boxes covering it. Or I'd use my mother's if I needed a lighter colour, which requires a bus trip across town. So this will be much more convenient!

I hope this blog post may be helpful to anyone who has similar serger troubles.

The Pile.

For as long as I've been sewing I've had the problem of starting projects and not finishing them.
In the earlier years it was often because I was inexperienced and didn't know how to proceed, had made the pattern really badly, or had chosen a crappy fabric.
But now it's mainly just that I get distracted and start other stuff. Planning and starting is always the most exciting part for me, and it's so easy to lose interest and motivation when a newer idea pops up.
I've had a hoard of plastic bags each containing a different unfinished sewing project for well over a decade now.
I did finish things occasionally - a lot of posts on this blog start with me saying the garment was one I started 2 or 3 years before - but The Pile never seemed to get any smaller.

If your unfinished things are scattered around in various locations then I'd suggest gathering them all into one place, if possible. My Pile used to live in 2 cardboard boxes but it's currently in a laundry hamper. (With the exception of the project that's stretched on my embroidery frame.)

The Pile on January 1st of 2025

I do not want to have The Pile!
I do not want pants I cut out 3 years ago to be sitting there half sewn up!
I do not want 8 different waistcoats sitting in pieces in 8 different bags!
I want to be someone who starts things and then finishes them, dammit!!!

A Pile can be quite an intimidating thing, but it is not impossible to defeat. 

For me the first step was going through all the bags to find the things I know for sure I'm never going to finish. I've had things sit in The Pile for 10+ years, so a lot of the older things had to be removed because they would never fit me now. 30 year old me is a very different size and shape from 19 year old me.

I can't even squeeze my shoulders into the first jacket I made.

I was able to donate some of these projects to a local theatre company! A historical coat that's 80% finished is a lot less work for them than making an entirely new one from scratch if they need it, so if you have historical or otherwise potentially theatre costumey items to get rid of it's worth asking around to your local low budget theatres. 
Theatre costumes get altered frequently and are seen from far away, so any imperfections won't matter as much. 
(I have also donated a lot of my older finished garments to the theatre, after outgrowing them or deciding the sewing wasn't up to my standards anymore.)

There were a few things that I just moved to my scrap boxes, since cut out pieces for a project that'll never fit are functionally the same as scraps.

There may be some project pieces that are too precious to get rid of but that can't be finished in the way originally planned, like the corded panels mentioned below, and it's ok to keep them and categorize them as Not an unfinished project. It takes a bit of mental weight off to stop thinking of them as a project. They're just a neat bit of work that might be useful someday.

It's also ok to decide you don't want to finish something for any other reason, even if it is technically possible to finish and wear it. Skill levels improve, and tastes and quality standards change.
Unfinished projects can clutter up the brain and make you feel guilty, and finishing them and firmly deciding to never finish them are both equally OK ways to deal with that.

With the never-to-be-finished things all cleared out it was time to count the number of projects.

I have a strict set of Pile Criteria by which to count, but you may prefer to come up with your own.

• I only count things where I've actually started work on the final garment, so the things I've just designed/patterned/mocked up/done samples for don't count.
  Cutting, painting, embroidering, etc. on the final fabric does count.
  Making an embellishment for a specific project (tassel, braid, appliqué, etc.) also counts, even if nothing has been done to the actual garment fabric.
  (Pre-making thread buttons for shirts is a bit of a grey area here, but I think I'm leaning towards not counting them.) 
• I only count things I have solid plans for finishing, so the box of little bits of patchwork I did for fun doesn't count yet because I don't know what I'll use it for.
  The corded panels I made 12 years ago for a bodice that never happened also do not count, because I kept them and might use them someday but I don't even have a specific design idea.
• I don't count mending or alterations, which is an unfortunately very large Pile of its own. However, I would count it if it was a complete unpicking and re-making.
• Non-garment projects do count, as long as there's sewing or embroidery in them. My braided rug counted, as does a little embroidered book cover I started a few years ago.
• Things are only in The Pile if I set them aside to work on another sewing project.
  If I leave something untouched on the table for a few days while I do chores and other work, it isn't on The Pile.
  If I put it in a bag and get out another sewing project, it is on The Pile.

(If you do knitting, crochet, or other things like that then it may be good to count them as separate Piles, so the numbers are smaller.)

There are a few things taking up space in the hamper that aren't officially counted in The Pile, but even just going by the rules it's been quite a large number for years. 
As of January 1st, 2024, when I was finally getting serious about wanting to finish stuff, The Pile consisted of 25 projects. 
I wrote them all down in a list and tacked it to my wall. I cross them out when they're finished and I can add any new (hopefully temporary) Pile items to the bottom.

The list as of late August, 2025.

Some of you may have much larger Pile numbers, but do not panic! One of the most important things to remember is there is no deadline! 

A Pile is built up over many years, and it's unrealistic and unfair to yourself to expect it to be finished in a short time. 
Especially if there are very large long term projects in it, like the patchwork dressing gown that I started in 2019 and finished in 2023.

Back in my 2023 in review post I added reduce The Pile to my list of goals for 2024, and over the course of the year I managed to whittle it down from 25 to 12, which I was very pleased with.
In my 2024 in review post I was more specific in my goal for this year - "Get The Pile down to 5 things at most."

If I achieve that goal (which I think I will!) that will be an average of 10 things a year. 13 in the first year and 7 the second year. (Technically I finished more than 13 but I also added a couple things, so this is just the net change.) 
(Also I have a patreon video from November of 2024 with a show and tell of all the things that were in The Pile at that time.)

I've finished all the easiest ones, so the projects left are the larger and more complex ones, and the ones that are just barely started. 
Ideally I'd like to get those last 5 things finished up in 2026 and replaced with a few new long term projects, but we'll see. Maybe I'll finish 2 or 3 next year and the rest in 2027. 

(I should add that 2024 was the first year of my life when I actually had a sewing room that was separate from my bedroom, and I'm quite certain I would not have been able to get as much finished if everything was still crammed into a bedroom. But I did still finish multiple years-old projects in that extremely cramped room, so it's not impossible!)

25 is a lot of abandoned projects, so spreading them out over 3 or 4 years is still a good pace! And you can decide what your own goals are for your own Pile.
Maybe you have a bunch of small projects and want to finish 2 per month, or one every 2 months, or maybe you just have 3 projects that you want to get done within the year. Whatever feels like an achievable pace for you.

But finishing things from The Pile is not the only consideration - the other major concern is not adding to The Pile.
I have been starting new projects in between finishing old ones! It would be difficult to keep up my motivation if I didn't start anything new. But I am trying very, very hard to finish them before starting another one, and have been mostly successful.
As you can see in the handwritten list I have 2 Pile projects I started in 2024 and none from this year. It's not ideal to have added 2 rather large and tedious projects, but the overall number has still gone down. I'm finishing more things than I'm starting, so it's ok.

While starting is the most exciting part of a new project, I find picking it up again to be the most difficult part of an old project. But once I get going on it it's not so bad, and the more things I finish the easier it gets. 
Crossing things off the list and seeing the number go down is exciting, and I'm increasingly confident that I can be someone who finishes things in a timely manner. 

One thing I did in an attempt to motivate myself was to change my tumblr blog title to a running count of how many unfinished projects I have. 

I'm not sure if this has actually helped or not, but at least it hasn't stressed me out.

I also made this spinner thingy to help me choose what to work on next, but I ended up mostly not using it. The few times I've spun it it's usually landed on things I'd already finished and needed to erase.

It's foam core with a cut down plastic binder sleeve to hold the card stock,
and the spinner is a small nail shoved through with a bobby pin on it.

As of August 2025, when I'm writing this, The Pile is currently down to 8 and I'll update the post later as more things get done.

The current Pile, waiting patiently under the table.
Or, under two tables, as my big table is above this out of frame.

Most of those 8 remaining projects require some amount of tedious hand work, like embroidery or beading, but it's alright. I'm tackling them one step at a time and there's no need to rush. 
The more things I finish the more free I feel to start new things, and some day I will have finished them all!

Personally I think about 3-5 is a good maximum of unfinished projects for me to have. It's nice to have a variety of tasks and some long term tedious things. But I would like them to not be 7 years old.

Red Brocade 1750's-ish Waistcoat

(I say 1750's-ish because the fabric is a bit inaccurate looking, but only a bit.)

Last month I made a very long post about secondhand obi silk and, since I wanted a more precise idea of how much fabric my projects use for the measurement section, I ended up cutting out a waistcoat just to see. I've been wanting to get back to posting more often on this blog, so I decided I'd do a blog post about this one, and I remembered to photograph most (but not all) of the steps.

The fabric is, as I talked about in that post, a Nagoya obi that was 30 cm wide and had 2.56 m of brocade and 2 m of plainer basket weave textured silk. Some of the photos show a magenta tinge, but in person it's very red.

While the design on it isn't perfectly accurate for 18th century, it has a similar enough look to some 18th century silks that I think it works nicely. The one thing I don't really like is how the floral parts have an ombre stripe to them.
I'm not sure what the striped material is either! The rest of it is silk, but the striped part is little flat strips similar to the metallic strips a lot of obi have, but they look and feel plastic-y and they burn like cotton. Perhaps some sort of large flat rayon filament? I do not know.

For the pattern I just used my jacket pattern, but without the sleeves. I somewhat regret this, as it's looser in the back than I would like, but I can always take it in.

There was just barely enough brocade for the fronts, and I had to cut the pocket flaps on the cross grain. 

It means the stripes go in the wrong direction, but oh well.

I cut the back out of the plainer part and there was a little bit of that left over after.

As is plainly visible in the cut out picture, the narrow width meant the fronts needed to be pieced, but the back didn't.

This fabric is very very thick and stiff and has nice solid selvedges, so I was able to just whipstitch them together.

I then trimmed the excess off the pieced on bits. (It's good to cut them out a bit too big before piecing, just in case.)

It left only a small ridge on the inside, and because the floral pattern doesn't go past the edge it means the seam is well hidden in the textured background.

I originally planned to line it with this peachy orange satin that was the lining from another obi, but it turned out to be a silk/rayon blend that reacted weirdly to water.
I sprayed some water on it while ironing and it shrunk a dramatic amount, and then went back to the original size with some more ironing. After lining one pocket flap with it I decided a lining that behaves that way was a bad idea, so I recut it in plain white silk taffeta from my stash.

It's not showing up well here but it was very bent.

I cut the back lining out of thin brown linen, and the pocket bags out of burgundy glazed cotton. (I like the glazed cotton but I can't use this particular one for regular linings because it stains light coloured shirts, as I found out when I used it in a jacket a few years ago.)

I machine sewed the centre back seams on the back, and the back lining, and pressed the seams open. I also machine sewed the pocket bags.

I sewed the silk back pieces twice because it's so thick.

Edit: Ooh nice, I just noticed that this 1750's-60's coat in the V&A has a very similar basket weave texture!

I tacked some tightly woven cotton obi interlining to the front skirts to help them stand out, and then added the buckram to the front edges. The buckram strip is a bit wider on the left side because the buttonholes will go there.

I folded a small strip of the obi interlining in half for the button stand and added it to the front edge just above the pocket. (But later in the process I was worried the buckram I used might be too weak and the button threads might tear through, which has happened before, so I added more button stand to the rest of that edge.)

I clipped the inward curves and pressed in the seam allowances on all the edges except for the side and shoulder seams. On the stiffened parts of the fronts I whipstitched those edges down to the interfacing. The pocket holes were also cut open, and the edges pressed and whipstitched.

(This is from after I sewed the buttons on, and you can see the additional button stand added later.)

After marking out the 11 buttonholes I sewed around them with a straight stitch by machine. I often do that step by hand, but I wanted to save a bit of time on this one. I cut them open with a chisel and overcast them by hand with a whipstitch using red cotton thread.

I have a buttonhole tutorial where I cover it all in much more detail, so I don't need to talk too much about it in this post.

I used cotton perle for the buttonhole stitches because I didn't have any red silk twist.

The buckram got warped from all the handling, so I pressed it after the buttonholes were done. 

Always good to press things between steps!

I clipped down into one side of the pocket bag so I could fold the edges back to match the pocket opening.

And lined it up, pinned it, and whipstitched it on. I had to stab stitch the ends.

I seem to have forgotten to photograph anything to do with the pocket flaps, but they had buckram tacked onto them just like the fronts, and the edges clipped and pressed in, and then the lining felled down.
I mark the corners of the pocket flap on the outside of the front, line it up and pin it, then baste it in place, and then carefully stab stitch the edge down to the front. The stitching goes a couple cm lower than the top corners of the pocket flap so it stays flat against the waistcoat.

I did death's head buttons, which I hadn't made in quite a long time. I was considering using this linen yarn, but it's too pink so I used the red perle again, which matches quite well.

The colours aren't coming across well in the photo but the linen
matches even less in person.

I have a video about making death's head buttons, so I shan't go into detail on that either.

The button moulds I'm using are wooden spacer beads from aliexpress, because it turns out those are a lot better quality than the much more expensive reproduction ones I've bought in the past.

I sewed them on the same way you sew on all 18th century cloth or thread covered buttons - by stabbing through the lump on the back and sewing it down slightly loosely to the garment, and then wrapping thread around those threads to form a shank.

With the buttons & buttonholes all done it was time to line the fronts.

I laid the lining wrong side up on the table and lined up the waistcoat front on top of it. I pinned it in place and basted it on, making sure to leave a couple of cm open around the edges.

And making sure none of the basting got in the way of the buttonholes.

I trimmed the seam allowance (except on the side and shoulder seams) down to a little under a cm and clipped all the inward curves.

And folded it under and felled it down.

I then basted around the buttonholes individually, so as to keep the lining from shifting during the next steps.

I poked through the buttonholes from the outside with large pin to mark the ends on the lining side 

and then cut through the lining along the length of the holes with my bird snips.

I whipstitched the cut edges down to the edges of the buttonhole. 

(I show this method in my buttonhole video, as well as a fancier piecing method that provides a cleaner finish.)

At this point in the construction process I always lay my pattern piece back down on the fronts to re-trace the side and shoulder seam lines, because they're covered up by the lining and because the shape of the fronts often warps a bit from all the handling it's had.

Fronts both lined, button attachment stitching all nicely covered up.

I basted the fronts to the back, tried it on to make sure it fit, and sewed them again with a smaller stitch length.

I often do that step by hand, but I did the sides and shoulders by machine because I wanted to make this waistcoat go slightly more quickly so I could get back to other stuff.

Then it was time to add the back lining.

I always line up the centre back first, and then smooth out the halves one at a time. I clip the inward curves, fold the edges in, and pin them down.

I baste down all the edges so I can more easily sew the lining in without pins in the way, and also so I can try it on one last time before felling the edges.

It fit just fine, so I proceeded to fell down the lining edges. I used off white silk on the side and shoulder seams, and red cotton on the other edges. 

Quite unnecessary to match the thread to the lining when the two halves of the lining don't even match and it's not going to be seen on the outside, but for some reason I just felt like matching it.

Then all that was left was to take out the basting and add bar tacks to the tops of all 3 vents.

Like the bar tacks on buttonholes, they're just a few long stitches taken across the surface, and then buttonhole stitches done over top.

Finished!

There are a couple of little goo spots on the back hem that I must not have noticed when cutting out, because I did have enough of the plainer fabric to have avoided that.

Must have been tape or labels there. I'll try taking it off with goo-gone at some point.

Overall I'm very pleased with this waistcoat. It came together fairly quickly, I'm happy with the construction, and the fabric is fabulous.

However, it does fit quite loosely in the back, and I'm not sure if that'll be a problem yet because I don't currently have any coats that go with it. The fabric is so so stiff all around that the back wouldn't fold and rumple up in back if it were to be worn under a slightly too tight coat, it would bulge out weirdly in front.

So I'll wait and see, but if necessary I may open the centre back seam most of the way up, trim the edges down a little to fit the curve of my back better, and leave it open with lacing. (A perfectly accurate and fairly common option.)

Those shoe clips are not 18th century at all, 
but I had them and they matched and I'd never worn them before so I figured I may as well.

I love making waistcoats, but my goodness I really need to make more coats. 

The two wool coats I made in 2019 no longer fit me and I have not yet attempted to let them out, and I haven't made... any new ones since then, aside from the navy wool one which was very tight to begin with and also no longer fits. 

I've made a dressing gown and a jacket, but no coats, just a lot of waistcoats with nothing to go over them. (Though to be fair a lot of those waistcoats were previously unfinished things from The Pile.)

Well, that's all for now. I will update this post if I do eventually add lacing to the back.