BIG HINT ~ buy as many REAL Brother made bobbins as you are allowed to purchase from Amazon, as any other ’similar’ plastic ones will cause you much frustration & due to the sensitivity of this machine, will jam thread up quickly. I wanted to order more, but Amazon would only let me purchase a limited supply…. your plastic bobbins may look nearly identical, but trust me they will NOT work properly on this machine.

I personally found the extra presser foot lever to be a silly, unnecessary addition that only gets in the way….if you are lifting the foot, you are probably turning your fabric, so your hands are involved anyway. Also tried the on/off sewing button & didn’t care for that either. The foot pedal gives you more instant control.

I really wish Brother had included the extra large, plastic sewing surface along with this machine, instead of its basically useless, plastic cover. Wow. For $60 extra dollars, I say go ahead & buy it, but to me, they would have done their customers a huge service by switching these items out.

For pillow strength, I use the ‘triple stitch’ or stretch stitch on my products. ALL the stitches of this machine are very nice & uniform, but using this particular stitch makes sewing very, very slow, unfortunately.

Due to it being a highly sensitive machine, you also must have some patience & a bit of mechanical acumen, because you will spend some time unscrewing the housing piece to clear tangled thread from inner parts, as well as taking apart the bobbin shuttle & cleaning it out so that the machine sews properly (Brother did not include a decent tool brush for this, so I use my old Kenmore brush to perform this task, & it works well). At least getting into the bobbin area is relatively easy, as the top plastic piece just pulls out & snaps back into place. No screws.

The auto thread is a great time saver of course (just make sure your needle is all the way up & in position to receive thread… I was pretty slow at realizing why I was having so much trouble). The automatic snipping of your top & bottom threads is also terrific & definitely saves on thread, although on my machine, it still leaves a good inch of each (any one know if this is normal)?…. plus it doesn’t cut threads clean all the time…. again, you need to constantly get inside & clean out your bobbin/cutter area, as threads tend to want to stick & jam things in there.

The design of the PC-420 is sleek & professional looking (don’t know why so many manufacturers want to make their machines look like cutesy, little girl sewing machines with color & swirls, etc.)… so it looks good just sitting there when not in use. Threading is easy & fast…. machine is sturdy & solid, though not heavy, so it’s great for portability… the computerized stitch window is also easy to understand & work, although the little embroidery letters are just okay, nothing more, so don’t think you’re going to do a lot of good looking personalization embroidered names with this. On the other hand it has a great stitch selection, & really, the stitches again are very, very nice & uniform.

Due to the fact that I sew professionally for my business, & the Project Runway is not designed to be industrial, I should have probably invested in a much more expensive sewing machine, but if you are a beginner or advanced home sewer, I honestly think you will be pretty happy with the Brother PC-420, as all in all it is a well designed, solid little work horse.

ANOTHER HINT: Do invest in fine grade thread, as I believe whole heartedly that even average priced thread can really slow you down if you sew constantly. And don’t even think of using cheap, big outlet store thread on this particular machine! Believe me you will be less than happy with your results. Hope this helps!