neil in gemini space

bernina L460 first review - 2022-12-27

when i seen anyone sewing with an overlocker (serger) i am amazed at what these do: securing the seam, the fabric edge, and cutting off excess fabric.

i reached the tipping point and bought a Bernina L460. another contender was a Bernette air threading overlocker. i stuck with the L460 decision because it has the same motor control as my Bernina 570QE - stitch by stitch from the foot controller, quieter operation.

pros

• dc motor
• stitch by stitch control
• bernina quality
• bright lights
• color coded thread paths that i can thread without difficulty
• same eco-system as my other machines

cons for others but not for me

• cost - we get what we pay for generally. the L460 lacks air threading but i want to pay for quality results not extra features that don't directly effect the stitching.
• off-cuts bin. widely reviewed as being difficult to remove - and it can be - until we work out how to remove it. i slip my fingers under the left edge of the bin and make a 'come hither' finger movement: bin pops off easily.
• no air threading. this machine is not hard to thread manually - i got it first time with my big male fingers.

cons

• the free hand system arm is a different design from the 570QE arm, but these look very similar. the difference is in the lugs that slot into the machine: 570QE vertical, L460 horizontal. minor issue really as these machines both come with a FHS arm. i have limited working space at the moment so being able to use the same arm between machines could be useful.
• a grub screw to lock the knife shaft is not properly accessible based on my first attempts. that said when i checked with the Bernina dealer none of their staff (sewists all) had even needed to use this function.

so far

so far i have used the L460 to:

• edge fabric before hemming
• sew a large bolster pillow
• sew pillow cases and pillow protectors

i bought the Mettler overlock thread kit with the machine (colors correspond to the thread paths) but after only a couple of weeks i have bought more neutral overlocker threads because the thread paths are easy to follow.

beyond one or two operator errors as i learn my technique the machine works flawlessly. i feel that i made the correct machine choice for my use cases. it even stitched flawlessly at the start when i had not noticed the clear plastic film over the upper thread runs that i should have removed when unpacking.

=> 2022-12-27 - (278K) my bernina l460 ready to work:-)

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