Wizcrafts

If you notice the member's user name is Shoepatcher and find it curious, it is because his entire business is about rebuilding/restoring machines that are used to sew shoe uppers. These are all patcher machines of many makes and models. I promise you that Glenn knows his stuff.

Thanks, "Shoes," but I am good for now. I got all the 332LLG and 332-LLG-LL I need from both Bob Kovar and "Shoe Patcher." 332 LLG are considerably longer than the common 332 and 29 series needles.

Yes, you are a member. You can advertise your machine for free in the Market Place section of the forum. There's a sub-forum there for used sewing machines. Don't advertise it in this section. Make sure that you include pictures and your asking price, as well as if you want people to contact you using our messages system, or by email. If by email, please obfuscate the email address so it doesn't get scraped by email harvester bots.

What are you referring to when you say control panel? Are you referring to the internal electronics, or the external on/off switch box? Or, perchance, to a positioner?

What kinds of shoes do you make, @Vinculus?

That looks like a nice wide mouth folder. How much thickness could one feed through it?

I am guessing that the first part of your question is referring to the Family Sew motors. If so, yes, there is something about the way the control lever is fastened to the shaft that controls the speed that makes the motor begin to slow down as you push hard on the pedal to speed up. It might be twisting or deflecting the speed controller inside the case when the chain from the floor pedal is on an angle. I found that I had to rig a large C clamp to the pedestal base to make the chain line up below the control lever to negate this effect. For some reason, some of these motors favor a direct vertical axis pull to achieve the full range of control. Could be the case, or the bearing moving. I dunno. It is only the top speed that is affected by the off-axis pull on the chain. Slow speeds are awesome and I can easily keep the CB4500 sewing at 1 stitch every 4 seconds, if I need to. In fact, when I set the speed dial all the way to the slowest setting, I can floor the pedal and it will sew at about 1 stitch per second. I set it there whenever I sew fishtails onto belts and straps. Answer to part two. Yes, the first brushless (push button) motor did make a slight rattling sound under certain loads and speeds. The last unit was pretty quiet though. I believe it was more powerful. But, it suffered from a sharp ramp up from off to slow. That's why I installed a gradient light beam filter that I got from Steve (as per a YouTube tutorial someone posted). The filter gave the motor really nice slow speed startup control. Unfortunately, there was a slight hiccup at a certain point that I never got rid of. I learned to feather past that dead spot. My current Family Sew motors don't have this problem. I hope this helps.

I have had both types of servo motor on various sewing machines. When I first got my CB4500, it had a push button, brushless servo motor installed. That motor quit without warning after one week of owning it. I received a free replacement, which was a slightly newer version of the same design. I had to create a custom varying density light filter to get smooth slow speed control. It lasted about 2 years, then it croaked. I replaced that motor with a rotary switch controlled Family Sew F?-550s, with a very small pulley, in late 2014 or early 2015, and it has performed flawlessly ever since. The brushes still work fine. It came with an extra set of brushes and a spare cork brake for when they are eventually needed. One of the foibles of the push button servo motors was the way you changed parameters by pushing so many times on the up and down arrows. You literally had to cycle past unwanted options to get to the startup and top speed controls. One of those push button options was to reverse the direction the motor spun, as I found out the hard way! No more push button servos for me!

There is a chance that the bobbins and needles for the ancient Pearson/BUSM harness stitchers might fit your Bauer stitcher.

As regards spare parts, good luck. If fortune smiles on you, you may find that it uses similar bobbins to some other machine from the 20th Century for which parts are still available. These could possibly be from a (Campbell) Randall Lockstitch, or a Landis 3 or 16, all of which use boat shuttles with cylindrical bobbins. Other parts may be made of unobtanium and would need to be custom made.

I found a manual for the Bauer Harness Machine. Better still, here is a YouTube video somebody posted showing how to thread a 1919 Bauer Harness Stitching Machine.

Here is a pdf describing the Seiko SSH series machines

I needed silver bonded nylon thread in #346 for a holster job. The only place I could find it was Superior Thread. I have occasional jobs where the customer asks for Harley Orange thread. I found mine in #207, at Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines. I also buy various shades of brown and beige there, in sizes 69 through 346. Sometimes I get heavily lubricated bonded nylon thread from Weaver Leather. It so heavily lubed that it drips as you sew! When I had my last needle and awl Union Lockstitch Machine, I bought heavily bonded #346 polyester thread from Campbell Randall, from whom I also bought 4, 5 and 6 cord Barbour's Irish Linen Thread, in left twist, and liquid Lax Wax. When all else fails there are always fleabay thread suppliers.

135x17 is a non-leather point, cloth and vinyl sewing needle.

If that is the actual correct model number (23-4), the machine is for bartacking button holes and nothing more. It can sew them into both cloth and leather. It is not a cobbler's machine, nor a sewing machine for normal lockstitch work.. OTOH, if it is a 29-4, it is a cobbler's machine. Post a picture or two and you will get a better answer.

That motor was the SewPro 500GR (I have one). About 3 or 4 years ago, after changing the metal the body was made of to aluminum and cutting the top speed in half, causing all manner of problems and complaints from users and dealers, the employees at the factory that built nothing but that motor went out for lunch and never returned.

The big needle and awl machines can sew through coins and up to 1/2 inch of wood. Campbell Randall has a video of their Campbell Lockstitch machine sewing a penny to a business card, on top of about a 3/8" stack of leather. The awls are solid steel. The machine goes ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa at the breakneck speed of about 3 stitches per second. I can imagine it being used to perforate metal sheeting for artistic purposes.

Feed dogs are usually only held onto the fork with two very small machine screws. The pressure exerted by the presser foot/feet on the feed dogs can loosen them over time. The higher the foot pressure, the more likely they are to loosen up and move out of specs. Tightening feed dog screws can be a challenge. I keep a very long (10"), narrow blade, big handle screwdriver for working on both the throat plate and feeder screws. I find it best to remove the faceplate from the head in order to get the best possible angle on the feeder screws. If the feed dog screws are allowing it to move around, tighten them as much as possible.

Adler discontinued the 205-370 in January of 2015, when they released the model 969 ECO. There are probably a few new 205s with some dealers around the World. But, most of the remaining stock has been sold. So, one would probably need to purchase a used machine. Adler replacement parts are extraordinarily expensive.

If the guitar straps have brown or black suede splits on the back, a bottom feed machine won't be a problem. Nobody will notice tooth marks in dark suede. Jimi's Singer can probably handle up to #277 thread (Tkt 10) without any problems. The bobbin should be large enough to let you sew about 7 or 8 straps per full bobbin load (with Tkt 10), and even more if you run #207 thread (Tkt 15) in the bobbin. Jimi, is that a 132 series machine? I used to own a 132k6 that looked a lot like your machine. A Singer 132k6 has a very large, vertical axis, round bobbin. It's at least twice the size of a Juki LU bobbin and holds a lot of heavy thread. If I recall correctly, those machines have a maximum stitch length of 2 to the inch - or about 12.5mm length and can sew with a #25 or even a #26 needle.

Somebody has removed the stitch length/direction lever from the vertical slot above the stickers. You will need to buy a new lever and have it installed in order to change the stitch length or direction.

To quote from the Cobra Class 4P page on SLC: "SLC Sewing Machines are shipped by freight. $150 flat rate shipping for business addresses." Do you have a business address and a truck loading dock or a high lift fork lift? Forget it. I just carted that machine and when I entered my Zip code, 48509, the shipping charge to be added was $286.00.

What machine is that? I don't see any pictures!. You aren't going to get any help until you post photos of the machine with no name. Is it hand operated by pulling the leather through a roller in a frame with a 6 or 8 inch wide blade? Or, is it crank or motor operated and pushes the leather against a blade and rollers, away from you? Or, does it have a round spinning sharpened steel cone that skives the leather from left to right under motor power?

The dimensions, type of motion and clearances between the shuttle driver and shuttle, the bobbin thread slot and tension spring configuration, the needle hole in the feed dog or throat plate, the take-up lever stroke, needle stroke, crank shaft thicknesses, bearings, thread tension springs, foot pressure spring, check spring and needle size are a few things that can limit the thread size a sewing machine can properly manage. Knots that are hard to hide or move up and down are caused by excessively large thread for the thickness of the material, or by hard to optimize thread tensions (because the machine was not built for that thread size combination). Knots always on the top are due to excessive top tension (from over-tightened upper tension disks, or thread binding off the spool or along the thread path), or a bobbin tension spring that is set too loose, or too large of a needle for the thread sizes, or a much larger thread size on top than in the bobbin. Thread knots on the bottom are from an overly tight bobbin spring, or loose top tension disks, or thread riding too high up in the upper disks, or failure to thread the check spring correctly, or too small of a needle, or much larger bobbin thread than top thread. The 95k43 is a tailors' and seamstresses' machine, with a shuttle and bobbin that was designed to clear and tension no more than #69 bonded thread. Actually, there was no bonded nylon thread when this series came out. It is pushing it to sew with cotton or polycore button hole thread and is best used with common garment thread sizes. The clearance between the shuttle driver and shuttle will probably pinch the top thread as it tries to go around the bobbin case.

You won't regret buying a 4500, over a 3200, or equivalent machine. The extra clearance it has allows for the use of high raised throat plates, like the holster and stirrup plates. They let you sew next to obstructions on the left side that would prevent normal sewing on a flat bed machine. Ask the dealer to install a drop down edge guide. It is invaluable for sewing straight lines or going around inside curves. I'm glad you mentioned that you had to wait to learn the shipping charges. Most folks don't know that shipping rates for large machines on pallets are not fixed. Different carriers and destinations affect the final shipping cost. Residential deliveries can be up to $100 more than shipping to truck terminals. The dealers have to look up the closest and lowest cost terminal (or add for a lift gate) before they can finalize your bill. Sometimes that involves phone calls. This is one reason that push button/shopping cart ordering is so difficult in the heavy sewing machine trade. As for payment by PayPal that you asked me about earlier, this can be done by the dealer sending a PayPal money request or invoice to your email address that is listed with PayPal. The email has a Pay Now link to your PayPal account, with the amount filled in. It doesn't even require a PayPal Debit card.