Wizcrafts

No

Basically, sewing with 1mm diameter thread (top and bottom) requires a combination of things to be true, as shown below. The machine must accept a large enough diameter, leather point needle to pass the thread. This is about a #30 (closed eye) needle for #554 thread. The shuttle mechanism (driver, race, shuttle/bobbin case) must have enough clearance for the top thread to go around the bobbin and its case, and out, without binding. The top tensioning and take-up components must be capable of exerting enough force and stroke to pull the 2mm+ (2 x 1mm) knots up inside the leather. Because such thick thread doesn't fold sharply, the total being pulled is more likely about 2.5mm. The take-up lever and associated cranks must be rugged enough to withstand this force. The presser foot pressure spring must be strong enough to hold down a stack of leather as the huge needle and thread ascend on the upstroke. The bobbin must be fairly huge to hold enough thread to sew your project. The motor will need to be very powerful and pulley'd way down and a 3:1 speed reducer will be required to punch through stacks of heavy leather with this large thread. The entire machine, including its shafts, bearings, cranks, screws and frame must be built with this type of heavy use in mind. The only sewing machines I am familiar with that meet all these criteria are Randall Lockstitch, Campbell Lockstitch and Union Lockstitch needle and awl machines. It may be that some of the Landis needle and awl harness machines can also handle #554 or equivalent thread. Or, a heavy duty shoe sole machine would do the job.

It takes a needle and awl machine to properly tension #554 thread, or its equivalent 8 cord linen thread. A Campbell Randall, or Union Lockstitch machine can do it. Ditto for a Landis outsole stitcher (Landis F, G, etc). FYI: I have sewn with #554 on a Union Lockstitch machine. It was a long time ago and I used my largest needle and awl combination:

You will not find a machine in any bargain stores that can sew any leather thicker than chaps, if even that. Holsters are usually built of two or more layers of leather that is over 1/8 inch (8 ounces) per piece. Better holsters reach 3/16" (12 ounces) per side. Western holsters often have a filler rib along the outside to position the revolver. This adds up to another 1/4" (16 ounces) of thickness. Packages like these need very strong thread, typically #277 (1/2 mm diameter), which requires a #25 leather point needle. Here is a typical heavy leather sewing machine that is used to produce holsters such as I described.

When sewing 5/8" of leather, you will probably need to increase the pressure on the presser foot. Add enough to prevent the leather from lifting with the ascending needle. Use a diamond (Tri) point needle if you have one. Use a stitch length that doesn't perforate the stack of leather. For me, that is usually 5 to the inch in thick leather. Increase the top tension, or reduce the bottom tension, to bring the knots well up inside the leather. Finally, use lubricated thread and sew slowly.

FYI: None of the modern compound feed walking foot 441 or 205 type machines can sew with any thread larger than #415. Few dealers even stock #415 thread. If you actually want to machine sew these extra heavy threads, which are hard to find, you will need to get either a needle and awl harness stitcher (e.g. Campbell Randall), or a humongous needle and awl shoe sole stitcher (e.g. Landis G). These machines do accommodate large diameter thread sizes up to 10 cord linen)

Here is a link to the Cowboy CB243 It uses the same thread, needles and bobbins as the other larger 441 type machines, but it is a flatbed.

It is the pressure leaf spring and sliding foot lift block assembly. I don't know the technical part names.

I see a binder attachment on the right. Does this machine have a drop feed feed dog? Or, does it always stay up and just move forward and backward? Some binder machines are made that way and stitch length suffers when you do normal stitching.

If you intend to use the CB4500 routinely to sew 2.5mm of leather, this may not be the best machine for you. Ditto if 10mm is the thickest you will be sewing. Move down one step to the CB227R, or the new, unadvertised CB341, both of which are cylinder arm, triple feed, walking foot machines of medium capacity.

I am glad my suggestions have solved your sewing problem.

Turn the needle counterclockwise so that the plane of the eye faces slightly to the rear, from the right side of the needle.

Are you sewing the diagonal rows in forward or reverse? I reverse on the diagonals, then sew forward to secure each loop. I draw the stitch lines on the leather with silver ink as a guide and sew over them. I make a big dot at the end points and adjust the last stitch to hit it. I use the right toe foot when sewing bullet loops.

Turning the work clockwise, especially with black, twisty thread, can cause the loop on the right of the eye of the needle to turn away from the hook, or even dissolve. You can counter this by rotating the orientation of the needle so that the eye is slightly to the rear on the right side. This prejudices the loop towards the approaching hook. It also changes the appearance of the holes. Another workaround is to try to increase the amount of slack thread that gets fed to the needle. This slack thread is what forms the loop that is picked off by the hook. The check spring that is mounted on the lower disk axle is responsible for the thread slack. The shorter the travel, the greater the slack. But, don't overdo it to the point where the slack thread gets split by the point of the needle. If you have really twisty thread, try wrapping it around two holes in the top post. One direction may be more effective than the other for cancelling the twist. Light colors are less twisty and softer than black, which is double dyed. This can vary from batch to batch. Order another spool of 277 to see if it is less twisty.

Yes; buy a stretch belt that has enough stretch range to go around the flywheel and motor pulley.

I have a flat slotted plate that came with the full accessory package for the CB4500. Whenever I have to sew something that is difficult with the feed dog and large cutout plate, I change to the flat plate setup. I know in advance that reverse may not line up with forward, so I use extra caution when backing up (or spin the work) Most folks use this accessory to sew thin leather that would get pushed down into the cutout of feed dog hole. I use it to sew as close to the edge as possible (for a particular needle size). This includes watch straps, thin collars and soft leather goods. Of course, the edge guide helps a lot in these jobs.

The SPI rating is the maximum. It is not a fixed value on walking foot machines You should get a machine with a dial stitch length adjuster, if possible. The clicks between stops make duplication of results possible. Floating vertical levers are not nearly so accurate if you change the position often. You'll want a machine with a press down reverse lever. As for stitch lengths, the smallest stitches would go into hems on jeans or dress pants and would be between 8 and 10 to the inch. Soft leather needs about 6 or 7 to the inch to avoid puckering the bottom. Medium density leather looks nice at 5 to the inch. Harder or thicker stacks of leather and light webbing can take 4 to the inch. Tow ropes should be sewn at 3 to the inch, or longer, if the machine will do that length. All this pertains to walking foot machines, not straight stitch. The feed dynamic is totally different. If most of your sewing will be with the same one or two colors in the bobbin, seek a large bobbin machine. Most of the large bobbin non-Juki machines use a size called M style, which holds about 1.5x the amount of a standard bobbin. Juki's large bobbin is known as an LU style that is double capacity to the standard industrial bobbins. The aforementioned bobbins relate to commonly available, upholstery grade, compound feed walking foot machines, like the Consew, Chandler, Juki, Cowboy, Cobra, Highlead, Techsew, etc, etc. There are other brands that have their own large bobbin specs. Also, the big leather stitchers do not use these bobbins.

Most edge binder attachments are meant to fold cloth tape over about 1/16" of material. The so called bias tape is sold on huge reels that are meant to be mounted onto turntable supports on the right end of the table. Some are even mounted vertically. The cloth tape is very slick and flows smoothly through the body and mouth of the binder. Leather tape, if sticky, would probably grab along the way and muck things up. I suspect that you would have better luck sewing thin, non-sticky vinyl tape, or just heavy duty cloth tape over the edges (using a double fold binder). The actual attachment should be a complete conversion kit. It should include a special set of presser feet (left toe presser foot, wide inner foot, with a pebbled surface on the bottom), a special throat plate, matching inline feed dogs and a movable mounting bracket to attach the binder to the machine. Setting the right distance and angle of the mouth of the binder to the needle, in two planes, is important for best results.

Here is how I would sew two layers of 5-6 oz leather that tends to bend down on the edges. Swap the double toe foot for the single left toe foot. Install a #23 (160) leather point needle. Back off the presser foot pressure spring. Rethread with #138 bonded nylon thread, top and bottom. Reduce the tensions in the bobbin and on top, to balance the knots under less overall tension. Set my edge guide to the exact distance that places the needle where it needs to be, keeping in mind that with reduced upper tension, there is less left deflection. Push the leather against the edge guide wheel as I sew. Set the stitch length to no longer than 6 to the inch. If this didn't solve the problem, I would then remove the standard throat plate and the feed dog and install the flat slotted plate instead. This usually does it for me on soft leather or textiles.

Dikman; The thread tensioner unit from the Singer 201 is setup for domestic cotton or polyester thread. The spring is probably very light duty. When you crank it down hard to try to tensions bonded thread in leather, you are compressing the coils too far, causing a disruption in the Force. There is no give at all if the coils are all the way in. Further, there is no room for the thread release to push the disks apart. You should try to find an industrial tensioner unit with a stronger coil spring. Also, make sure the check spring has enough travel and tension. It was probably setup for light duty thread.

Add some travel to the check spring.

Not only do they have carbon brushes, they also come with a spare cork brake. It is a little tricky to adjust it and some people remove their brake entirely. If you do that you'll have to use your right hand as a brake. There is some variance between these motors. My buddy with a Cobra Clas 4 had me install a FS-550 on his machine. Without any tweaking he has 1/2 inch of totally free motion between the brake letting go and the motor powering on. I can't seem to get anywhere near that much on mine (sigh).

I have two FS-550S motors, both equipped with a non-standard 50mm pulley and multi-position speed limiter switches.. One is on a long body Singer walking foot machine, direct to the flywheel. The other is on a Cowboy CB4500, feeding a 3:1 speed reducer. The Singer can be operated (sewing belt leather) at a steady pace of about 1.5 stitches per second, with the switch in the slowest position. Moving the limiter up adds more top end and makes it a tad harder to sew at the slowest speed. I can set it to full speed and still feather it down to about 2 per second, depending on how much coffee I have had. With the pedal down, at top speed, the walking foot machine flies along at about 20 stitches per second. The Cowboy can run at just under one stitch per second with the pedal all the way down. I use this setting to sew fishtails onto belts. Backing off the pedal, I can carry on a conversation and watch the needle move. I recon that it is moving at about 1 stitch every 9 seconds. With the switch set to full speed and the pedal down, the Cowboy sews at about 5 per second. Colt; For some reason, your link goes to my videos page, where three I uploaded are listed. Maybe it is logged in user thang..

Yeah, that's the old style I used to have. I finally replaced it with the Family Sew FS-550s, from Toledo Industrial. It has a rotary switch to limit the speeds. Newer models have a pot instead of a switch. There is a whole topic about mods others have made to these motors and yours. Did you know that Cobra Steve makes variable density attachments for push button control servo motors?

Tom; You must be using one of the old style push button servo motors.