Wizcrafts

Make sure you have sufficient foot pressure to fully hold down the leather as you sew. If it is too loose the leather can lift with the needle and cause problems like skipped stitches and bent needles. Take the cover off the end and handwheel slowly, watching the needle and hook for actual contact. The hook should just miss the scarf in the needle on the upstroke. If the needle touches the hook, the needle bar needs to be checked for looseness at the top and re-positioned, then tightened in place. There's a tapered pin holding the needle bar in place and set screw on top the locks down the lateral position of the needle bar pin. How often do you remove the faceplate and oil every crank and oil hole in the left end of the head? While you're doing that, check all set screws for tightness. Raise and lower the feet with the hand lifter to ensure that there is no binding or excess slack. If these simple things don't make any difference, contact Ron at Techsew. Make a video, with audio, to show what is happening.

Possibly done on a Consew 104 free hand embroidery machine (by skilled sewers). Otherwise, they use a heavy duty programmable commercial embroidery machine, like those made by Melco.

@PaperSpiders The three text links you posted are invalid links. Please try posting new links to your work or gallery photos.

I recently bought a 6" blade Landis hand cranked splitter from a walk in customer. The blade needed to be replaced and the screws and springs adjusted for best results. You can sometimes pick them up for $300 to $500, depending on the condition. Or, you can save the hassles and buy a new cranked or motorized splitter from Weaver Leather, Cobra, Cowboy, or Techsew. Hand pulled skivers and splitters are sold by all the usual suspects, like Weaver, Tandy, Springfield, eBay, Amazon, etc. The longevity depends on how good the steel is in the blade and how good you are at keeping the edge stropped, sharpened and polished.

Forget the position sensor unless you want to sew fast and stop fast. If you buy a servo motor like this one, which already has a very small pulley, you can feather the pedal to sew at about 1.5 stitches per second. It is easy to stop it on a dime from that speed. This type of motor has brushes and does have a power drop off when you turn the speed limiter pot or switch all the way down. Turning it just above the starting speed regains the lost torque. The knob on this motor limits the top speed. Some people add a speed reducer setup between the motor and machine. That allows for extremely slow sewing and magnifies the torque by the gear ratio of all four pulleys (motor to large reducer, small reducer pulley to machine). There are new v-belts required when changing from a clutch to a servo, plus when adding a reducer into the mix. I would try it direectly from the servo motor to the machine pulley. Just make sure that you buy a servo with a 50mm pulley. I use these motors on most of my machines.

What a time to be broke ;-(

I edited the actual source code and fixed the link. It's an HTML thang.

Here is the 7411RL-37 in action...

If the threads are too far gone, use the set screw on the bottom of the adjuster channel to set the stitch length and lock it down with the top set screw. If you need a different length, unscrew the top screw and set the new length, etc.

I checked out that ad and the machine is setup as a standard crossfeed machine, not up the arm. The foot and feed dog must sit inline with the arm to feed up the arm. This one soen't have that.

If you go to this Singer model number page and look under the section for the 11 series, there are several listed as up the arm feed machines. Finding one in working condition is another matter. They are from the 1940s and WWII.

From what I can see in the dark photos, that cylinder arm machine just has normal feed over the arm. Transverse feed machines have the foot/feet and feed dog aligned inline with the arm, not across it. Singer used to make a machine that sewed up the arm.

That style of feed is called transverse feed, or sew up the arm. There are sew up the arm machines used to make blue jeans, but they aren't really able to sew with heavy thread and may only be chainstitch machines. There are some specialty sew up the arm machines that are smaller than the Hightex in the video, but you'd have to search the Internet for them. If a chainstitch is acceptable, there is a brand made in the USA called Puritan. Their machines are chainstitch with needle and awl feed. The make an up the arm machine called The Alligator.

Another factor is about to come into play regarding the prices of Chinese vs Japanese built sewing machines. The Chinese machines now have a 25% tariff applied at the port of entry, Japanese machines have much lower tariffs that are not about to go up. As the prices of Chinese clones rises due to tariffs, the Japanese prices will likely stay put. The difference may zero out soon, making a JP built machine a better deal all around.

Bore out the hole in the pulley with a bit that is the closest good fit. You will need to use a caliper to figure out if you need SAE or Metric to get it to fit. That's what our dealers do when they sell you a Family Sew motor with the 50mm pulley already on it. Of course, they have special drill bits that bore an exact diameter to fit on the motor shaft. You could have saved all this running around if you bought the motor with the 50mm pulley installed from our dealers.

If I recall correctly, the Singer 15-91 also threads from right to left (groove on right). However, it is a horizontal hook machine using Class 15 bobbins. Singer slant needle machines thread from front to back with a vertical hook in front of the needle.

Then update your profile to show your location.

I have better success using #23 (160) needles with #138 thread.

Sorry. Not me.

Personally speaking, I would prefer a clutch motor with a 2" pulley over a pushbutton servo motor that starts spinning at 300 rpm. One can learn to feather the clutch, but can never feather an on-off switch. I have clutch motors on a few machines and prefer them over any servo due to the nature of those machines.

The only servo motors I would avoid are those with push button controls. The ones I have and had all started rotating at between 200 and 300 rpm and have no smooth transition from off to on. Conversely, most of the rotary switch and pot controlled motors do transition smoothly from zero on up. Unfortunately, those motors often suffer from low startup torque when the maximum speed has been turned way down. This calls for a 2:1 or 3:1 speed reducer to be thrown into the mix. Of course, the smallest possible motor pulley helps a lot. Every sewing machine has a different size pulley in the flywheel/handwheel. Most are about 3 to 3.5 inches in diameter. Even a 2 inch motor pulley doesn't get you 2:1 reduction unless the machine pulley is at least 4 inches diameter (at the top, where the v-belt rides). Only the biggest and heaviest machines have 4 inches and larger pulleys. Shaft sizes are not universal, so a big hand/fly wheel from an old Singer may or may not fit on a newer or Chinese machine.

Have you tried rotating the threaded rod stitch adjuster? It should reach a position where it will rotate right out the back. The knob on the back has a little stud on the inside. It rides inside threads cut into the shaft. If the threads are damaged the rod can slip about or not move in and out. The shaft with the threads is made of unobtanium, which means you'll need a salvage machine or a metal lathe to get a replacement. If the adjuster turns in and out but won't come out, open the top access cover and rotate the wheel to bring a set screw to the top. Ignore the cap screw on the other side for now. It covers a powerful spring that will launch it into space. Unscrew and remove the internally threaded set screw, then back off the second set screw that's under it. See if the adjuster will back out. If not, rotate the wheel to bring the cap screw to the top. Unscrew it carefully as the spring may try to launch it into space. Try unscrewing the rod. It is a good idea to remove the spring now, set it aside and reinstall the cap screw to keep the internal parts from dropping out. If the adjuster will not unscrew, use a rawhide mallet or a #2 rubber mallet to lightly tap on the left side of the handwheel as you turn the adjuster. Hopefully, it will allow it to unscrew and come out. This may destroy what's left of the threads on the shaft. Once you have removed the adjuster and handwheel, cleanup warped threads on the main shaft with a flat file. Do the best you can to preserve as many threads as possible. The examine the adjuster to see if it is gouged at the pointed end. Clean up the pointed end with Emory cloth and a buffer. If it sucks badly, replacements from Asia are available. If the threads are too far gone on the main shaft, you have two options. Locate a replacement shaft that has good threads, or have one turned on a metal lathe. Then loosen the set screws on all of the upper shafts and cams in the head and pull the shaft out the back. Reassembly won't be fun either. Leave the damaged original in place and reuse the original adjuster rod, statically. This means instead of turning the knob, you have to remove the threaded set screw to get at the secondary set screw that actually determines how far the stitch length mechanism gets pushed by the pointed rod. When you have the desired length, reinstall the top screw to lock the thrown down. In either case the spring on the opposite side needs to go back into its hole and be tightened down with the cap screw. Good Luck with that! At this point most people take the machine to the scrap yard.

Have you visited our Marketplace section, under Sewing equipment > Old? You can post a machine wanted ad for free. Include your location to narrow it down to nearby sellers. If you don't find a post machine for sale from a member, check with Toledo Industrial Sewing machines (Ohio) or Leather Machines Company (Cobra; California).

If we make the assumption that the machine is properly threaded, the tension problem could simply be too small of a needle for the thread combinations. Consult this needle and thread chart and use the largest needle recommendations in dense leather.

This is a small bobbin patcher. The bobbins don't hold much thread. About the only size that can go very far is #69 (T70) bonded nylon or bonded polyester. That is okay for wallet interiors and thin phone cases, as well as for sewing patches onto Bikers' vests.