Wizcrafts

I see you live in Tennessee. Nick-O-Sew is located in your State. They sell all manner of garment making machines and have lots already setup on tables. I'm fairly certain that they can help you get the right machine, with reverse and the needle gauge you need. Go for something new and under warranty if you can. Otherwise, choose a brand whose replacement parts don't require a bank loan, such as the Adler and Pfaff do.

Of the above listed items, #1 is important when you change height from the collar and other major seams to lesser thicknesses. The outer foot stays up on the higher layer and if the inside foot doesn't have enough alternating distance, the bottom layer will lift with the ascending needle and skip stitches.

I am not going to address any of the mechanical problems your machine may or may not have. Rather, I am going to pass on my own solutions to similar problems I encounter when I sew jackets and install zippers that have double sided leather tape. Increase the alternating height of the feet to the maximum before the bottom of the needlebar hits the top of the inside foot, at the height of the thick collar seams. Increase the pressure spring action of the outside presser foot. You need to force the spongy layers of garment leather down all the way. Switch to titanium coated system 135x16 needles. Titanium resists the glue on the tape clogging the eye. Use a size larger needle than you think is necessary. The larger eye lets the thread move a little easier through the goop. Increase the travel on the check spring to keep tension of the top thread until the needle completely pierces the material.

The bobbin thread should have a smooth steady pull, and not be binding inside the bobbin case. Once you get the bobbin tension loosened, reduce the top tension to balance the knots inside the leather. Clutch motors have an adjustment bolt on the front, on the left forward face. Backing off this (nut and) bolt gives more free play before the clutch pad engages. This may allow your foot to get accustomed to the action of the clutch. Once you get the clutch adjusted for your toe, you should be able to feather it down to 1 stitch per second. The smaller motor pulley definitely slows down a machine, always. Once you drop the speed that way, it stays slow. A 50 mm pulley will slow it down a little less and still add more punching power.

Yes, but that is the maximum size. Use #19 or 20 needles with #92 thread.

Try playing with the travel of the check spring. Its job is to allow a minimum of slack in the top thread until the needle contacts the material. Then, it's supposed to let the top thread go slack as the take-up lever moves down. When skipped stitches start happening for no apparent reason, assume that the needle is at fault and replace it. Finally, increase the pressure on the presser foot. If perchance the inside or outside foot allows the material to pucker upwards as the needle ascends, you'll get a skipped stitch. Sometimes, the pressure is adequate, but the inside foot doesn't have enough alternating travel to keep pressing down after you leave a seam. This allows the material after the seam to lift, causing a skipped stitch. If in doubt, remove the throat plate and watch the thread as the needle ascends from BDC. It should form a loop on the scarf side, above the eye. The hook should pick off the loop. If the timing is too far advanced or retarded, the hook can miss the loop. The check spring can affect the loop. Good luck! It's an old machine. There's bound to be slop in the moving parts that may cause the stitching problems.

It looks like somebody has attached a coat hanger to the presser foot screw! The only reason I can imagine for doing that would be if the knee lever or foot lift pedal is missing or not working properly. Weird.

Without researching the TackySew machine, all I can advise is that if you intend to use it to sew slowly, go for a manually oiled machine, like the 31-15. If one of the newer machines is also manually oiled and complete and working, buy it. The high speed straight stitch machines have actual oil pans and oil sump pumps. They must be run at very high speed to distribute the oil. Manually oiled machines are safer to run at slow speeds all the time.

It was a harness maker in Toronto, a long long time ago. I only sewed for him a time or two. I did buy a huge lot of Union Lockstitch parts from that shop. I still wish I could have afforded to buy the Randall Lockstitch machine I was offered back then. I had just purchased the ULS and then his lot of parts, and was dead broke.

When did this start happening? Is the top thread going through all the upper guides, tensioner, check spring and the take up lever? Are you using the correct needle system and size? Did you try to sew hard leather before it stopped picking up the bobbin thread?

I forgot to mention that many of those 5/8" Sulky straps were double edge stitched, 1/8" apart, all without an edge guide (aside from the operators hands) We'd sew all the way around then start the second row 1/8" in from the first row. Fun....

If the machine has been sitting idle for a while, completely oil it, from the top and bottom, and apply light gear grease to the interacting toothed gears. Run it to distribute the oil then wipe off any that drips down on the feet and needle. Don't forget to oil the bobbin winder shaft. Check the v-belt for about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of slack in the middle and adjust if it's too loose or tight. Make sure the belt isn't fraying. Replace it if it is. Exploding v-belts can harm you. Set the bobbin tension screw for a modicum of tension against the bobbin thread. Make sure you load the bobbins into the bobbin case so they unwind counterclockwise. This means that the bobbin thread makes are sharp bend as it feeds through the slot, to the hole where the tension spring affects it. You only need a smooth steady pressure. Not loose, not tight. Definitely not binding from left over starting thread stubs! Feed the top thread through all of the guide holes, around the top of the upper tension disks, down and around and into the check spring, up to the take-up lever, then down through all guides to the left side of the needle. Thread from left to right, with the cutout or scarf above the needle's eye facing due-right. Hold back the top thread and rotate the wheel counterclockwise to catch and bring up the bobbin thread. Raise the feet, insert the work, lower the feet, hold back the starting threads and commence sewing. If the lockstitch knots are visible on top, reduce the top tension adjustment nut or knob. If the knots are showing on the bottom, increase the top tension. If you have trouble balancing the position of the knots, try using a smaller needle size for that thread combination. It is always easier to balance the knots when you use the same size, color and brand of thread in the bobbin and on top. That should get you back into the ballgame.

Brandy; You can tell the difference between a clutch and a servo motor simply be plugging it in and pressing/throwing the power button/switch. A clutch motor will begin spinning with a whine and blow warm air out of the cooling vents as it reaches its rated full speed (either 1725 or 3450 rpm). It will power the machine as you engage the clutch with the floor pedal. The only real control is a large hex head bolt that positions how far the pedal has to move before the brake lets go and the clutch engages. It will also have an adjustable spring that determines how much the control arm hanging down resists the floor pedal's weight. A servo motor won't make a sound or spin when you simply switch it on. It will only turn over and make a sound when you press the floor pedal to power the motor. It may have lights and buttons, or a rotary knob to limit its speeds. Both types of motor will also have a threaded bolt, with over and under locknuts, used to control the slack in the drive belt.

I once had a gig sewing on a Randall Lockstitch Machine that used 4 cord, left twist, glazed Barbour's Irish linen thread, run through Ceroxylon liquid stitching wax, sewn at 10 stitches per inch. It was used all day, 5 days a week, to sew up to 5/8" thick straps that run from sulkies to harness race horses. My fingers were the edge guides. It sewed at approximately 300 stitches per minute, pedal to the metal. Tapokita Tapokita.

I was in a similar situation in 2013 or 14; I can't remember which, I sewed at home part time and had a Union Lockstitch that I rebuilt over a 2 year period. I invested over $1000 in parts, thread, needles and awls, in addition to the cost of obtaining it in the first place. By the time I was finished modding the machine, it sewed up to 7/8 of an inch. During the summer of 2012, I moved into a shared, one room - 280 square foot leather business with a fellow crafter. By that time I had also acquired a brand new Cowboy CB4500. There was only room for one of the big machines and the Cowboy won. So, I put the Union Lock up for sale and it went fairly quickly. I used the money from that sale to fund a used Singer 139 long arm walking foot machine and a Fortuna skiver. I brought home the standard size walking foot machine that was in the shop and replaced it with the Singer 139. The skiver was on a short table that Bob Kovar custom built for me. It fit between a display cabinet and the wall behind it, which amounted to something like 32 inches. As much as I miss the awesomeness of the Union Lockstitch machine, with its needle and awl system that I had adjusted to space station accuracy, I make more use of the two machines that replaced it than I would have if I'd kept it. Sometimes you have to let go of machines that aren't truly needed and move on to others that are more useful for the work at hand. As things turned out, last summer we took over a second adjoining room that had even more footage than the original. It is loaded with machines and a cutting table, plus rows of storage cabinets and stacked drawers. I could have easily fitted the ULS into the new room; now dubbed the sewing room. But, that's not how it played out in my timeline.

Yep, the driving pinion needs to be replaced. In theory, if you replace everything under the arm with well fitting but not binding parts, as well as the foot driving cam that lives under the revolving head bushing, the machine should sew like a brand new old one. You can probably buy all these parts, plus a new take-up lever and a new bobbin case, for around $300.00.

Another cause of skipped stitches can be glue or double sided leather tape clogging the eye of the needle.

Open the throat plate and see how far you can rotate or wiggle the shuttle with your fingers. If it has 1/8" or more of slack, the gears are worn out. If that's the case and the machine was using anything thicker than #92 thread, you can guess that the oversize thread wore it out.

If your patcher has a ~7/16" hole in the lower section of the front right of the head, you probably have an adjustable timing model. You can stick a large flat bade screw driver through the hole and angle it into the large slotted eccentric bolt that couples the mechanism from the top to the racks inside the arm. You may need to loosen the locknut on the inside of the adjuster couplings first. The offset bolt allows for advancing or retarding the hook timing by about 1/8 inch. If you don't have this adjustment in your patcher, you'll need to replace some or all of the gears and racks under the left end of the arm.

You asked if I use #69 thread in my patchers. Absolutely! I only use #69 thread in my 29k71, which is a small bobbin, short arm machine. Even with light weight thread, the driving pinion gear and bearing have worn to the point of needing to be replaced. The machine is out of service until the parts arrive. Fortunately, I also have a long arm, large bobbin, Singer 29k172 patcher. I normally use #92 thread in it. Now, it has to do double duty with #69 and #92. I have compromised and use a #19 needle that handles both thread sizes. I just load some bobbins #69 thread and others with #92. It pays to have 4 or more bobbin cases and dozens of bobbins for different colors and sizes of thread.

You should try loosening the thread tensions to the minimum needed to bury the knots. Start with the bobbin by backing off the little tension spring screw until there is just a modicum of resistance when you pull the thread out of the bobbin case. Sew a test run and reduce the top tension to position the knots in the center of the leather, or at least out of sight inside the bottom layer. Use a #18 needle with #69 thread, and a #20 needle with #92 thread. The one size larger than needed holes will allow you to reduce the thread tensions and still get the knots well up inside the leather. The only remaining adjustment that your 29-4 has available it to loosen the little leaf spring on top of the take-up lever. Back it off a bit to get a little extra slack thread on top. There will be a spot where you will see benefits. Going beyond that point will make matters worse and may let the needle pierce the thread and separate it. Note; I am not referring to the long leaf spring on the back. This spring is on the very top and rides on the take-up lever to assist it with pulling up the top thread between stitches.

Possibly, as long as your thread comes off the spool without binding, isn't like a coil spring as it unravels, and you have well balanced top and bobbin tensions. The knots (actually interlocked stitches) may be visible from both sides, even if they are placed at dead center. That is because of the combined diameter of two interlocked #346 threads being over 1/16th of an inch. The #26 needle hole is fairly large and makes it harder to hide these big knots. I think you'll have much better success if you limit #346 thread to projects over 5/16 of an inch. I personally don't use #346 in anything under 3/8".

Nope. The original owner had it on the table and I have no problem with it being there. The only reason I can think of for having a hold down tab is to keep the bed from lifting if the knee lever rod raises too high. This used to happen to me when I shared one table with three machine heads. I would try to reposition the knee lever for to each machine. But, if the bent rod was too high it would sometimes lift the front of the body up out of the housing cutout in the table. The lock down tab is also useful for transporting a fully assembled machine and table.

The heavier the top thread, the sooner you will wear out the teeth on the driving pinion gear. As this worsens, you'll notice that there is more slop in the shuttle carrier and the timing will become erratic under load. After a while the hook will become too retarded to effectively pick up the thread loop on the needle and you'll start seeing more and more skipped stitches as you sew. Another negative impact from using too heavy of a top thread is the extra pressure it puts on the feed cam for the foot, as it drags the leather against the force of the stitches. It will cause it to wear faster than otherwise if you had thinner thread and less overall thread tension. This will cause the stitch length to suffer. FWIIW: When I had a 29-4 and completely rebuilt it due to the aforementioned experiment gone bad, I limited it to #69 bonded thread, top and bottom. Less thread tension = less foot pressure required = less wear on the driving cam and shuttle drive components. It is also less stressful on the take-up lever.

That machine is absolutely not a leather sewing machine for the purposes normally discussed in this forum. It is a vinyl and webbing sewing machine that somebody has used to butcher a leather knife sheath. The motor on these mini-walking foot machines is rated at 150 watts under full load and develops most of its power at higher running speeds. They have a tiny 2 speed reducer pulley between the motor and machine. If the machine has that much trouble starting in a fairly thin leather knife pouch, like in the above video, it won't stand a chance trying to penetrate a quarter inch of veg-tan. It usually takes a 1/2 horse power, 550 watt motor, or stronger, to penetrate 16 ounces of veg-tan leather from a dead stop. You basically need a motor that is 5 times more powerful than the one in that Sailrite machine.