Understanding Different Bobbin Sizes
ZJ Humbach
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Whether you work with different sizes and types of sewing machines on a regular basis or you are simply buying extra bobbins for your home sewing machine, it is important to know about the different bobbin sizes. ZJ explains about several of the different bobbin sizes, what machines they work in and how using the wrong size can affect your stitch quality.
Understanding Bobbins Sizes
Similar to many sewing tools, bobbins come in many various sizes and styles. Some are labeled with letters, like an ‘M’ or ‘L’ bobbin, while other are numbers, like 15. Knowing what type and size of bobbin your machine takes is important. Not all bobbins are clearly labeled with their size or style, however your machine manual should tell you what bobbin size your machine takes.
ZJ shows several of the different sizes and explains what machines they are for. Larger bobbin sizes are typically for long arm quilting machines or some embroidery machines. These machines are stitching very fast, and if they used a small bobbin, you would constantly be changing one out.
Types of Bobbins
Bobbins not only come in different sizes, but also in metal as well as plastic, and empty as well as pre-wound. While machines can only use one bobbin size, whether it is plastic or metal does not typically matter, however consult your machine manual to be sure. When buying bobbins, you can either buy them empty and learn how to wind a bobbin or you can find them pre-wound.
ZJ explains that some machines have issues with pre-wound bobbins and you may find your stitch quality is not where you want it. Some pre wound bobbins also come with cardboard on both sides that may need to be removed. Whether you buy empty or pre-wound, it is important to buy the correct bobbin size.
A bobbin's a bobbin's a bobbin, or is it? Actually, it's not. There are actually different types of bobbins for different machines. So you need to know what type or rather what size bobbin your machine takes so that when you go to buy extra bobbins, which eventually you will want, you buy the right one. A colleague was just telling me, not too long ago, that she was given a lot of pre-round bobbins and went to put them in her machine and lo and behold, they didn't fit.
They were too big and she wasn't sure why it was and then realized they were probably for a long arm machine. And her guess was exactly right. A long arm bobbin, depending on the machine, not all long arms are made alike, but many of the commercial style ones, the larger ones that are not of a domestic machine make, use what we call an M bobbin. And you can see that it's quite a bit larger than your standard sewing machine bobbin. Although in width or height, I should say, it's the same height or very, very close to it.
The reason the M bobbin is so much larger is because the long arm machine or a commercial sewing machine, typically uses cone thread and sews at a very high rate of speed. And you would literally run out of bobbin thread before you know it, if you use the standard size bobbin. So that's why most long arms have an M bobbin. Some of them will have an L bobbin and you may find an L bobbin in some of your domestic sewing machines. Others use one that looks like this, and these are both the same size even though one is plastic and one is metal.
These are a class 15 bobbin. So there's different bobbins, check your owner's manual or ask your dealer where you bought your machine what kind you should buy. And when you go in, or if you send your spouse in to buy a bobbin for you, don't just say, I've got XYZ brand of machine. Make sure that he or she knows what model you have because that can make a difference between machines. You also, when you buy pre-wound bobbins especially for embroidery work in a machine, again you need to find out if your machine will take an M or an L size pre-wound bobbin.
You also need to check because some machines don't like pre-wounds period. Or if you do, if you get the kind with the cardboard, they want you to remove the cardboard and you will see that the thread still stays on because of the way that it's wound. But you need to take the cardboard off so that your sensor can tell when you're running out of bobbin thread. Otherwise you're gonna be sewing along and won't know that you're out of thread. So, there really is a difference in bobbins.
And it is something that I think is wise to know about. So again, check with your dealer or look in your manual and make sure that you're using the right bobbin for your machine. It could be, especially because some bobbins are very close in size, that you've put the wrong bobbin in your machine and your machine just isn't happy with it. Many years ago, Pfaff changed their bobbins and the newer bobbins wouldn't work in the older machines. You had to make sure that you had the clear bobbin versus the blue bobbin.
So there can be little differences in there, and it's amazing how something so simple can make such a big difference in your sewing.
Thanks for the lesson in bobbins but I’d like to know more about why some bobbins are metal vs. plastic. Would metal bobbins spin with more friction than plastic? Is it ok to use if they are the same size? Would it harm the bobbin case to use metal if the machine came with plastic?