How do I clean and oil an overlocker?

An overlocker needs cleaning far more often than a sewing machine, because it is cutting fabric continuously and generating lint with every centimetre of seam.

How often. Brush it out at the end of every project, and more often on fleece, wadding, towelling or anything that sheds. Half an hour of overlocking knits produces more lint than a day of ordinary sewing.

The method. Unplug it. Open the looper cover and the side cover, remove the needles if they are in the way, and brush lint outwards and downwards. Use tweezers on the compacted mat that builds up under the loopers and around the blade — it presses into felt and a brush skates over it. A small vacuum with a brush nozzle is ideal.

Do not use compressed air. It drives lint into the mechanism where you cannot reach it.

Pay attention to the blade area and the stitch finger, where trimmed fibres and cut thread ends collect and interfere with stitch formation.

Oiling. Follow the manual, because models differ substantially in which points want oil and how often. Where oiling is specified it is usually at the looper pivots and the moving shafts, one small drop each, with the machine run briefly afterwards on a scrap so surplus oil marks that rather than a garment. Use proper sewing machine oil and nothing else.

Keep it covered between sessions. An overlocker left open collects household dust straight into the looper area.

And service it professionally on the same sort of interval as a sewing machine, sooner with heavy use.