Plastic Bobbins or Metal Bobbins?

Each type of bobbin has its own pros and cons. Below is a list of some pros and cons for each type.

Plastic Bobbins
Plastic Pro
1. With plastic bobbins, you can see when your thread is running low. However, it’s only a pro if you have a sewing machine that loads the bobbin from the top rather than from the bottom AND if you remember to check for thread remaining on the bobbin. A picture is provided below to show you how easily you can see the amount of thread available on the plastic bobbin.

Plastic Cons
1. Plastic bobbins are fragile and break easily.
2. Plastic bobbins are too light to hold themselves in place when the wound thread runs low. This may create a thread jam as the needle tries to pull the thread through the top of the work area resulting in unsightly thread knots on the fabric.

Metal Bobbins
Metal Pros
1. Metal bobbins are strong and last virtually forever.
2. They are heavy enough to hold themselves in place when the wound thread runs low thus you aren’t wasting thread and precious time ripping out seams due to knotted thread jams.

Metal Con
1. You will probably run out of bobbin thread at an inconvenient time because you can’t see when it’s running low. But at least you get to use all the thread that you wound so perhaps this can be considered a metal bobbin pro if you don’t mind the inconvenient timing of thread run-out.

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