If so, shoot a note to Amazon, as this should not be. There should be two stitch fingers (which are actually hand sewing needles) glued to the plate, and the stitches form over them. And you need them.
And they need to be parallel to each other. If a machine has taken a hard enough hit to break a stitch finger, I'd also worry about the loopers being out of time now. BTW, when you're learning to use a serger, it's handy to thread up with threads that match the colors of the guide dots on your machine.
Then you can tweak the tensions and see what's going on easily. Also remember that threading needs to be done in the order specified in the manual. If you try to thread the lower looper position with the needles already threaded, for instance, you'll trap the lower looper thread under the needle threads and it will break again.
And black thread is usually the crummiest quality because of the harshness of the process needed to dye it -- if any thread is likely to give you trouble, it'll be black thread. Or dark green, which is just about as bad.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.