Wizcrafts

I never had trouble controlling my Union Lockstitch machines that were using continuous run motors. The tapered clutch on the back of the machine is very easy to feather. I was able to stop with either the needle up and foot lifted, or the needle under the throat plate and foot down. It stopped on a dime and gave me change when I heeled down on the go pedal.

First of all, buy a pack of new needles in the correct "system:" 29x3 or 29x4, or 135x16 or 135x17. These have the correct length from stem to stern. The wrong length would impede feeding. While these are on order remove the needle and adjust for the best possible feeding of 8 ounces of leather. The foot should pull back then lift off the leather as the needle bar moves up and down down. The lift is determined by a sliding block that rides along the end of the leaf pressure spring. There must be enough pressure applied by that spring to hold the foot down as the needle ascends to for stitches. Too little and the leather will lift with the needle, causing skipped stitches. Too much and the leather will have deep marks and you'll stress out the ancient mechanism. Lower the stitch length adjuster gib with the foot lifted up all the way via the hand lift lever on the back. This is the longest stitch length setting. You can verify if your needle is the correct length by opening the throat plate sideways, rotating the hand wheel (c.c.w.) and watching the hook as it passes the needle clockwise, then reverses and intersects it about 3mm above the eye. The needle should go all the way down, make a slight upward jog, halt for the hook's arrival, then continue lifting. If the needle is too short, the hook may never intersect it above the eye as it makes its jog.

Kevin; You will probably get more answers if you start a new topic in this section of the forum, rather than adding to an old pinned topic that has nothing to do with your brand of machine. There are several Landis owners here that can assist you. Just start a new topic.

To add to my last reply, knife sheathes need stronger thread than an upholstery grade machine can handle. I use #277 on the top and bottom for sheathes and holsters up to 3/8 inch thick, then move up to #346 for anything thicker. Upholstery machines max out with #138 thread (22 pounds test). Here is a thread and needle chart that defines the sizes and how they work together.

Unless a dealer has experience with real leather sewing machines, they will try to sell you an upholstery grade machine as a "leather sewing machine." As far as this forum is concerned, this is a real leather sewing machine for knife sheathes and holsters. Compare its specs with those of the machines you have been looking at. The differences should be obvious. I consider this an entry level real leather sewing machine. To answer your question about adding a walking foot to a non-walking foot machine, NO. A sewing machine is either a walking foot machine, needle feed machine, or bottom feed machine. While walking foot machines come in several flavors, they all have three bars coming down and two alternating feet, as opposed to just two bars and one foot on a straight stitch machine.

I never said anything about the thread size a #18 needle fits. That would be #69 (T70) bonded nylon. I was in fact replying to Shoepatcher's comment.

Most of the good quality hemmers are designed to fit onto full size industrial machines. The right angles binders that do inside curves require a special presser foot set and a throat plate with a cutout for the mouth of the folder. Some even have a special feed dog that goes with the set. Chances are somewhere between null and void that anything like that will fit your portable walking foot machine. I think your best bet is to contact Sailrite and see what they can sell you that they have for their portable machines (LS and LZ series).

I have to agree with Katit here. I too have servo equipped machines without reducers and it is sometimes hit and miss with using my foot alone to stop dead up or down. That means I have to use the hand wheel to find the perfect rotational place . A needle positioner would speed things up by letting one sew fast, do a motion to affect the needle's position at the stop, then either pull out or resume sewing. The machines that have 3:1 reducers are hard to turn by hand unless the brakes are removed from the servo motors. Clutch motors are easier to hand crank for precise needle placement.

Once you get down to a size 18 needle the point isn't so important and can affect the lay of the thread. The way I decide on a point change is if the needle makes an unpleasant noise, or squeaks going into the leather. That tells me that the friction is excessive. I keep three types of point in stock: round, DI (triangle) and slicing (LL or LR). Some points go through with less drag than others. Experiment!

There is a coil spring inside the head, around the presser bar. You need to push down on the bar to get more pressure and hold it down until the locking collar secures it in place. This is a domestic sewing machine for cloth. This forum is for discussing industrial leather sewing machines.

If it is, as I suspect, a clone of the Singer 15-90, it can likely sew 1/4 inch of cloth and about 1/8 to 3/16 inch of soft to medium temper veg-tan leather or vinyl. Seeing as how this is a drop feed machine, it will need help to pass leather under the foot. There are two ways to accomplish this: a roller equipped foot or a Teflon foot. While Teflon feet are easy to find and cheap, they mark easily and will be chewed up if one comes in direct contact with the feed dog.

Unbeknownst to many used to modern sewing machines, the Union Lockstitch machines can be adjusted to lay down the tightest stitches in the World, followed by Campbell-Randall Lockstitch machines. The take-up mechanism is capable of locking the top thread 100% near the top of the upstroke. It is usually also set to a certain amount of lift to position the knots in the dead center of the layers.

You can read the specifications for the Consew 206R, here.

That Union Lockstitch is music to my ears. I've owned two so far and sold both of them off. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with one more.

Yep. Thread through all of the holes.

Try to locate Tony Luberto. He might be willing to build one for you. Or, he may have one left from the final run.

Take the tension disks off and clean and polish them. Remove any thread fragments you find near the threaded shaft. Make sure that the thread has some back pressure before it gets to the tension disks. This helps keep the thread deep inside the disks.

Actually, from what I've seen and read on the Sailrite website, the feet for leather are checkered, not smooth. They still need to grab a hold of the top layer to pull it back. Smooth feet would tend to slip on the top unless it was very grabby. If they now offer truly smooth bottom feet, I stand corrected.

I fully agree with the bold text statement in the quote. Before CowboySew or Cobra, or the Juki TSC-441 ever existed, I owned a Union Lockstitch machine. That machine used a separate needle and awl and had a jump foot. They are typically used to sew long runs of tug straps and other horse tack, with heavy 6 cord linen thread run through a wax pot. The standard needle and awl set for this kind of work resembles a roofing nail. As such, there is no perceptible give when the needle comes up through 3/4 inch of leather and pushes it back to complete a stitch. While most of my sewing with that machine was thick thread into thick stacks of veg-tan or bridle leather, there were jobs that required more finesse, thinner thread and a correspondingly smaller needle and awl. During the years I owned that machine, I had purchased every available needle and awl made for it. Every setting would require tweaking when changing from a #4 down to a #1/2 needle (about the diameter of a #19 walking foot needle). The tapered screws that positioned the moving needle and stitch length assemblies had to be tightened almost to the point of binding to get a perfect placement of the tiny needle in the hole stabbed by the tiny #1 awl (about the diameter of a #20 needle). The slightest looseness in these parts usually resulted in the needle missing the hole, hitting the bottom of the leather, pushing it up and bending the $3.50 needle. But, once the machine was tightened to the Tees, it sewed like a champ. The only machine that could best it was a Campbell-Randall Lockstitch machine owned by a professional harness maker in the same city - whose work often went to the Rockefellers for their race horses.

Not only do you have to worry about damage during shipping from eBay sellers, but also the level of assistance the seller will give to you after the sale. Some will and some won't and others don't speak English as a first or even second language.

My past experience with an LU-563 was that the reverse stitches were nowhere near the length of the forward stitches.

As I have learned, sometimes, the only way to get hinges for ancient Singer sewing machines is from another one of the same model, or year/period in time. It may be easier to convert the hinges to modern ones, even if that involves drilling out the holes in the base of the machine and routing out the indents in the table.

The machine isn't exactly a 111 model. It is a 20" body Singer 139w109. However, the moving parts and stitch length adjuster are the same as my 111w153, except the case and top and bottom shafts which are extra long. It was custom built for me by Bob Kovar, owner of Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines. You'll have to ask him what was involved in converting it to the LU Juki hook. I can tell you that the LU hook makes the timing very touchy compared to our standard 111w153. There is almost always a snap as the top thread goes around the shuttle and I have a lot more skipped stitches on this machine than most others, especially when sewing through leather tape between the layers. I only use titanium needles to minimize the glue buildup on needles. There is also more tweaking of the check spring needed than on the standard 111 machine. Would I buy another machine with an oversize hook conversion? Probably not.

Anybody responding should know that Carmen is located in Canada. There will be customs documents required and possibly duty charged if the work crosses the US/Canada border.

It is my experience that the timing of the arrival of the tip of the hook above the eye of the needle varies between forward and reverse sewing. That is why we time our machines in the zero motion position on machines having a single lever for both direction and stitch length. Most of my numerous sewing machines are forward only. I spin the work 180 degrees to lock the stitches at the beginning and end, or else I pull the top thread through the bottom and tie both starting and ending threads together (then trim the ends). This eliminates any issues like you are having.