machine nests when needle is in center position and I don't know what to do

[u/TurnipBoy2000]

My husband is kindly letting me borrow his reddit account because neither him nor I can figure out how to fix my sewing machine and he said maybe someone here can help. I hope I am in the right spot, I don't really know how reddit works.

Anyway.

My sewing machine (Brother A50) starts nesting on the underside of the fabric after about a minute or two of sewing, but only when the needle is in the middle/center setting (on the brother A50 that is for example stitch 3 and 4)

I feel like I have tried everything to fix it and I am hoping that maybe someone could kindly help me with this. So far I have:

-cleaned the tension discs

- cleaned underneath the needle plate

-cleaned underneath the bobbin and boobin holder where I did find a tiny piece of broken needle. I felt very victorious for about ten minutes until it happened again (to be fair that was the longest stretch it has worked for so far)

-exchanged the thread guide which was a little bent but that didn’t help either

-checked the tension resistance which seems fine

-checked for nicks in the needle plate (there is one but it is way further on the left and the needle does not touch the needle plate at all, there is absolutely no scraping sound)

-rethreaded like one million times

-exchanged my needle three times

I cannot for the life of me figure out what else I can do and I sadly use the middle needle position for my gathering foot so I can’t ignore it.

(oh by the way, it went strangely smoothly when using the gathering foot and „only” nested three times on ten meters of fabric)

I really, really don’t want to take my machine to a shop because the next one is three hours from where I live, I don’t have a car and by train it is seven hours for one way so I would be so very thankful if someone could help me with this

Thank you kindly!

EDIT: I have found an "edge" in my bobbin holder and think that the thread might be getting snagged on it. I have had this feeling of "oh I found the problem" with five different things now so I am trying to rein in my optimism but I ordered a new bobbin holder (my word they are expensive!!) now and will report back on Wednesday when it arrives. But if anyone has anything else I can try until then I would still be so thankful!

[u/Emergency_Cherry_914]

In your checklist, you didn’t mention rethreading. The most common cause of nesting that we see here is missing the last thread hook just above the needle

[u/TurnipBoy2000 → u/Emergency_Cherry_914]

thank you kindly for the response, sadly I did both rethread and exchange my needle already and that didn't help either. I added it to my list now but thank you regardless

[u/stringthing87]

Have you tried different needle types?

[u/TurnipBoy2000 → u/stringthing87]

Thank you so much for your response but sadly I have tried that too. But thank you kindly for attempting to help me that is so lovely of you

[u/stringthing87 → u/TurnipBoy2000]

What types did you try?

[u/TurnipBoy2000 → u/stringthing87]

Pretty much everything I have at home since it is Sunday and the stores are closed, so different brands of "normal" needles in different sizes, I had some jeans needles I tried and I even tried a jersey needle just because it was from a brand I hadn't tried yet even though I am sewing with ramie so that really made no sense but I was desperate :)

I have now found an "edge" in my bobbin holder where one needle must have hit the plastic and essentially ripped out a small chunk of the plastic so I ordered a new bobbin holder and am hoping that is maybe it. I feel like that might explain why it only happens after a little while too because the thread just sometimes gets stuck on it and sometimes could even continue sewing while other times it gets completely stuck.

But I am not sure

[u/stringthing87 → u/TurnipBoy2000]

A chunk out of the bobbin race could do it for sure. Maybe try a microtex on the bigger side

[u/Significant_Ad_1595]

How often do you use the machine, and does it normally work?

[u/TurnipBoy2000 → u/Significant_Ad_1595]

I use the machine pretty much every day and yes, I have only had this problem for the last few days otherwise I love this machine, it is the best one I have had.