Wizcrafts

You should definitely contact Techsew and see if they will send you a replacement bobbin case tension spring. Techsew is an advertiser here and offers excellent product support.

There are a few walking foot machines that can handle #207 thread and even fewer cylinder arm machines. Many of those machines will prefer to have #138 in the bobbin. A lot depends on the thread itself. Despite the marked size designations, there seems to be a lot of variance in thread diameter, based on my own experience. Some #207 (aka: T210) thread I have is smaller or larger than other spools. Some of the black thread is tough and springy, while others are softer. All of this plays into what a given machine can deal with. Because of these thread based variables, it is best to look for a sewing machine that is definitely built with heavier thread in mind. This leaves out all of the upholstery class walking foot machines. The might sew with #207, but it is a crap shoot. There is one machine that comes to mind that is fully capable of tensioning #207 thread (up to #346) and can be equipped with either a flat or roller foot. That is the Cowboy CB2500. It is a heavy duty bottom feed cylinder arm machine that is a clone of the old Singer 45k series. The bobbins a cylindrical, the parts are massive and it sews up to 7/16 inch out of the box. Check it out.

If there is a Tandy Leather store within driving distance, why not call them to see if they have a Boss stitcher in stock that you can try out? They have everything there in one place: scrap leather, needles, thread, machine. Unless you are able to physically try out a Boss, you won't know if you will get along with it. These machines are tempermental until you learn to operate them. I do know that you can't half cock the lever and expect a good outcome. Personally, I would prefer a rotary wheel than a push lever on a hand driven sewing machine. I remember Bob Kovar, owner of Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines, posting about a Cowboy head that they converted into a hand operated machine. It had a Barney wheel on the flywheel. Let's see here: 18 ounces of leather is equal to 9/32 of an inch. That is well within the capability of any upholstery class, walking foot machine, most of which handle #138 thread. Some newer builds have an extra large hook that allows you to sew with #207 thread (33 pounds test). That is really the minimum size you'd need to securely stitch a holster or strap that's 18 ounces thick. The Cowboy CB341 and Cobra Model 26 can do that. So can a GA5 type machine, like the Cowboy CB2500 and Techsew 3650. I'm sure someone could add a Barney handle to one of those machines so you can hand crank it.

You're correct; there are only a few hand operated real leather sewing machines. I'll list a few and others will add to the group. Hand operated heavy leather stitchers. The Tippmann Boss (one of our advertisers). This machine has a push pull lever on the right side. It uses the same large cylindrical bobbins and long needles as the 441 type machines and can sew up to 3/4 inch of leather. Everything depends on how strong your right arm is and how long it can operate the lever. You can buy directly from Tippmann and get factory support, or buy it from Tandy Leather stores. The Cowboy Outlaw is a brand new clone of the Tippmann Boss, made in China by CowboySew. It uses the same bobbins and needles as the Boss, but has beefed up cranks, frame and bearings. I don't know anything else about it right now. I'll add the expected price when I learn it. Somebody has converted a Cowboy CB3200 into a hand operated stitcher by adding a Barney handle to the flywheel. I'll bet that Toledo Industrial can do the same for you. This machines sews up to 1" of leather. The Luberto Cub is a rotary hand cranked heavy stitcher that also has a Barney wheel on the flywheel. It also uses 441 type needles and bobbins. They are few and far between and are built in the USA by Tony Luberto. The Gritzner/Frobana curved needle sole stitcher has a rotary wheel on the right side. It has a blade ion the bottom that cuts a sewing channel and moves the work. Junker and Ruh sole stitchers have a push pull lever and sew along the edge.

When I got into leather work and started getting orders, I decided to leap into machine sewing over hand sewing. I got scammed time after time by dealers who knew little or nothing about sewing vegetable tanned leather projects (e.g., holsters, sheathes, Police gear). By the time I found a truly capable "harness" stitcher, I had acquired 6 under-performing industrial machines. The first sad machine was a Singer 96k40, which is similar to the 31 series everybody is asking me about. That machine was sold as a real leather sewing machine. It had a green top wooden table, 1/2 hp clutch motor and steel k-legs frame. What was sad about the machine was that it was just a cloth garment sewing machine. I bought every type of foot and feed dog/throat plate set, including a full roller foot conversion. I timed, clkearanced and retimed. I tried longer needles, bent the shuttle driver, stood on my head and did cartwheels in front of the G-damn p.o.s. Despite pouring hundreds of dollars into the iron body machine, it could barely sew a little over 3/16" of soft leather. I used the roller foot to sew a leather vest made from a Tandy pattern pack. I went through a pack of 10 needles in the process. This was done using #69 bonded thread, which was the largest thread it would clear in the bobbin and shuttle. Fast forward to here and now and people still think they can use garment quality machines to sew holsters. So sad. All of the experience that has been shared on this forum over the years has fallen on blind eyes and deaf ears. This is a leather sewing machine Here is a similar real leather sewing machine This is a real leather sewing machine from the turn of the 20th Century, and still made today. Here is one of the finest leather sewing machines you will ever see or read about! This heavy duty machine is popular with people sewing leather straps where big tooth marks on the bottom aren't a problem This is NOT a leather sewing machine ! It is meant to sew cloth garments. This is a tailoring machine, as I learned.

Despite the cast iron frame and steel shafts, that 15 class is just a domestic sewing machine. As such, it is limited to a maximum thread size of #69 bonded nylon (11 pound test), using a tiny #18 needle. This thread can barely hold a zipper on a vest. Putting a real gun into a holster sewn with such thin thread will cause the stitches to come apart! The proper thread size for a stack of 3 pieces of 6 ounce leather would be #277, which is 4 times the diameter of what a 15 class can handle. This thread is rated at 44 pounds strength per lockstitch. The needle used to sew with #277 thread is a size 25/200, which resembles a roofing nail. The machines used to sew real holsters and sheathes, plus dog collars and horse tack are huge Cowboy and Cobra and Techsew branded 441 type machines. The eat 15-91s for lunch and spit out the left overs.

Hide House also carries some very nice upholstery hides, ranging all the way up to 65 square feet! They are flat rate priced, between $255 and $420.

Tandy sells most of their leather at a flat price, until you get into the top of the line brands. It is possible to go to a Tandy store, hand pick, and score an excellent deal on just about any common type of leather. But, I wouldn't order leather from them sight unseen if appearance and dimensions are critical. Tandy currently lists large black Zora upholstery hides at $199.99 flat rate (plus gas or shipping and State tax) for up to 50 sq feet. Otherwise, if ordering upholstery hides online, or over the phone, only deal with somebody who is willing to actually look over the hides before shipping them to you.

In order to cover a 48x96 inch top, plus a fold down valance that is at least 4" tall, you will need three sides. The best way to get them is to buy 2 full closely matched, clean upholstery hides, as long as possible from stem to stern. While you only "need" 48" x 96" for the top, hides tend to average about 96" in length, having some areas near the backbone that can run over 108" and others dropping to 78" and less. An average full hide is about 50 to 53 square feet. Having two full hides will allow your sewer to splice the best sections together to cover the entire top and have enough hanging down to hold it all in place. Upholstery leather can range in price from $3 a square foot for lesser quality, up to $12 a square foot for awesome sauce. Nice hides can be had in the $5 to $6 a square foot range. What's left over can be made into new seat covers.

The main difference between walking foot and flat foot machines is that all straight stitch bottom feed machines have to move the material is the teeth on the dog, whereas the walking foot machines have a moving feed dog, in sync with a moving needle and moving inside foot, plus up/down motion presser foot. This is known as compound or triple feed. The feet alternate up and down, allowing them to climb up and down over layers. They are built for upholstery use at a minimum, thus have much stronger cranks, bearings and springs. Check out your local and nearby Craigslist for an upholstery shop selling off a used walking foot machine. They sometimes let them go for $500, or even a little less, depending on how badly shot they are. These machines are rode hard and put up wet and usually have clutch motors that run at 1725 rpm.. You'd probably need to buy a servo motor to be able to sew slowly. Add about $135, plus $10 for a new v-belt.

All of those machines you listed are domestic, garment sewing machines, with bottom feed only. They all have moving parts and tensioning springs that were designed to only handle the force exerted by cotton and linen thread. As such, these are NOT leather sewing machines for anything much thicker than 3/32 of an inch. That would be a combined leather thickness of 6 ounces (two 3 oz pieces). Some may even sew 8 ounces, but you'd have to crank the presser foot spring down all the way. reducing the stitch length from the huge top drag. In my experience with these old iron domestic machines, some can handle up to #69 bonded thread, top and bottom, using a #18 leather point needle. But that is it. Nothing thicker. Only the ancient Model 27 was truly able to sew 8-9 ounces of bridle leather, but only with #69 bonded nylon thread and a #18 needle. The Model 66 was the least capable machine for sewing leather. And the much sought after 15-91 has the most gutless pod motor that can't even penetrate 8 ounces of bridle leather on its own, without turning the wheel by hand. Listen friend, if you came here wanting to know about the type of machine you need to sew real leather, stop with the domestic sewing machines and start looking at compound feed walking foot machines, like the Consew P1206RB. It is an entry level machine, retailing at just under a thousand dollars, fully equipped, that is able to sew up to 3/8 inch of leather, with #138 bonded thread, using a #22 or 23 needle.

You can create an account and upload your video to YouTube, then embed the link they provide in a reply, here. Just copy the link code and paste it into a reply on the forum.

The flesh sides could be roughed up with sand paper or a wire brush than re-glued with 2 coats of thinned contact cement.

Paul; System DBx1 is also known as system 1738 and as system 16x257. Anybody who sells industrial sewing machines also sells these needles. There are dozens of industrial sewing machine dealers across Canada, the best known here being Techsew, a division of Raphael Sewing, in Montreal. If you look at the top of any page on Leatherworker.net and refresh your browser (press F5 while using the browser), you will certainly bring up one of the Techsew banners. If you don't see any banners it is because you are using an ad blocker (shame on you; we depend on these advertisers to stay online), so turn it off! Your photo reveals an oil level viewport. That indicates that your machine has an oil pump and must sit in an oil pan filled with industrial sewing machine oil and must spin fast enough to distribute the oil to the extremities of the top wicks. We are talking about at least 2000 rpm to get the oil distributed. Failure to run the machine at speed will eventually cause it to seize up or run poorly. Garment machines like your Omega do not usually properly handle #138 bonded thread. Be prepared to limit it to #69 bonded thread, using no larger than a #18 needle.

The Consew 206RB series are a very common upholstery machine. They can sew with up to #138 bonded thread, have large M style bobbins and can sew up t0 3/8 inch of material. Since the machine is in an upholstery shop, where time is money, the motor probably has the same size pulley as the machine. This means that the 1725 rpm motor will spin the machine at the same speed. Unless you are sewing long couch and seat covers, boat covers, banners, or tarps, you'll probably need to replace the motor with a servo motor, which typically sells for $135.00. Most leather sewers have a 50mm or smaller motor pulley installed to get the most torque at very slow speeds (~ 1.5 stitches per second).The different motor size and smaller pulley requires a shorter v-belt, so add another $8 to $10 to the price to upgrade. With a $700 machine, new servo motor and new belt, you'd be investing $840 into a 37 year old machine that has probably been run hard and put up wet. BTW: A brand new current model Consew 206RB-5 sells for $1300, plus or minus. It's new brother is the Consew P1206RB, which has similar specs, but goes for about $995, already equipped with a servo motor.

Of course. They should be made to swap with standard harness feet and no additional adjustments to the foot bars. I was referring to the original inline feet that are sold by the CowboySew company.

I replaced the feed motion crank in my 29k71 two years ago and after filing the new "puck" for the best fit in the ring, it consistently gives me 5 spi

I don't think they were made for a different machine. They fit perfectly into the presser and vibrating foot bars. I think that maybe the company had a raised holster plate on the machine when they designed these feet. They would be just the right length for those plates. Or, someone measured incorrectly. I don't speak Chinese so I can't ask them. I don't know if the new ones are the same length as mine, or have been corrected.

I'm your huckleberry

Uwe, I'd like to conspire with you on the design of the milled inline feet and a slightly raised throat plate to use with them..

Lol, Thanks for the compliment. I've never been accused of being normal, nor have my friends and business associates. As for the video, I've done better in the past when I used a real camera. I miss my Leica M3, Canons, Rolliflexes and Graflex..

As promised, here is a video I shot on my phone, showing the Cowboy inline foot set in action, on my Cowboy CB4500 sewing machine. I narrated the clip while my bearded business partner, Dan Ragan, did the sewing. Before we teamed up in 2012, he had never even touched a heavy leather stitcher. Now, after a couple lessons, he sews like a champ! Note that I am not a pro shooter. This was done ad-libbing on my Samsung S5, not on a real video camera (my Canon is broken ;-(). Hopefully, next time I shoot a video, I'll have a real camera and my 12" reflector lighting.

Note: It took me a good 20 minutes to switch over to the inline feet and get the presser and vibrating bar heights and thread tensions right. The more jobs I can do with them on, the happier I will be!

Don't kid yourself! That's what I thought when I bought these feet. Now, my last 3 repair and new build jobs have required these inline feet for the best results. The last job was resewing an added on decorative flap on the upper area of the top cover on a biker's saddle bag. Any other presser feet would have been less efficient. I only installed the inliners to post this article. Now, they are refusing to not be needed!

If your Omega is a straight stitch garment machine, it probably uses system 1738/DBx1/16x257 needles. These are the most commonly sold needles in the garment trade. Another system used in some garment machines is the Pfaff system 134. They have a slightly wider upper shank, but about the same length from the top of the shank to the eye, plus or minus a few microns. Shorter needles translate into a shorter needle bar stroke, meaning less thickness can be sewn than a different machine that uses longer needles. Also, the pressure, top tension and check springs will probably be much lighter duty than those on a walking foot machine. If you are lucky, the machine will be able to sew with #80 jeans thread, using a #19 (or 20) needle. This thread is commercially available from suppliers to the garment trade, such as Wawak. They have everything you'll need, including needles,bobbins, thread, oil, lube, snips, bindings, Venture leather tape, et al.