Wizcrafts

Eric; I clicked on the "Quote" button in your post and a "Reply to this topic" text field opened, with a complete set of formatting options, including the link icon. It is directly to the right of the "numbered list" icon, and under the "Size" selector for fonts. I do notice a tiny arrow on the right side of the formatting toolbar. If you hover over it the tool-tip says: "Collapse Toolbar." If you click on that arrow/button, the formatting icons and fonts disappear. Maybe those who cannot see the formatting icons and options have had their toolbar collapse, with or without their knowledge. Perhaps it is the Russians invading our forum with microbots, stealing our formatting tools. "All your formatting tools are belong to us!"

Eric; We seem to have a problem with the forum posting function when it comes to mobile devices. The HTML and text formatting options don't seem to appear when mobile devices compose posts and replies.

I spoke with Bob Kovar on Saturday and he informed me that all of the new batch of Family Sew motors shipped to him will be factory equipped with a 50mm pulley. No more fabricating an inside collar to mount a larger bore pulley to these motors. Even with the 2" pulley, if it feeds a 4" machine pulley, the top speed should be around 1800 RPM, or 30 stitches per second. This is fast enough for upholstery and most garment sewing work.

Take your machine and table to that dealer and have them swap to the new motor. That way you'll have the right belt, tension and pulley for your intended speed range.

I had to perform the stupid optical cheater trick on my previous digital servo motors in order to have good slow speed control. Not so on the FS-550.

The brake on the FS-550 is composed of 3.56672389725 mm thick, medium high density, extruded and composited, triple resublimated Thiotimoline.

Here is a machine built to sew leather wallets, holster and sheathes. It has a capacity of 1/2 inch of hard leather and handles up to #415 bonded thread.

That link has a period at the end of .com that is breaking the link, resulting in a Server 400 bad request response. The correct link is: http://www.fairfieldfabrics.com/

Have you contacted any of our supporting and contributing industrial sewing machine dealers? Most have ad banners on top of every page on these forums. You've got Leather Machine Company, Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines and Techsew as advertisers here. Plus, Gregg at Keystone Sewing and Dan at Campbell-Randall are contributing dealer-members.

Consider it gone.

I use #23 needles for both #138/138 and #207/138. But, I move up to a #24 needle for 207/207. The Schmetz and GB S type needles are a special (inline oval) shape that causes the thread to lie low in the top layer in a straight line. You feel it with your finger, but the ends sit down in the hole edges. Diamond and triangle point needles cause the thread to lie fully on top, with a long appearance for the same stitch length setting as S types. Usually, type 794 needles are leather points and usually, type 7x3 are the same dimension in standard sharp round points. I use the round point needles to sew webbing and denim. Leather points rip the fibers of those materials, where rounds penetrate without damaging the filaments. This is especially important when sewing heavy webbing tow straps.

All straight needle, single bobbin machines use left twist (Z) thread. Curved needle sole stitching machines use right twist, as do the right side needles on dual needle, vertical-axis-bobbin machines, if those bobbins rotate in the opposite direction (CCW) to the right hand bobbin. This can lead to confusion.

Your work list falls mostly up to 1/4 inch of leather, which any flat bed, compound feed, walking foot machine can handle. However, your last two items are circular or shaped bags, which are best sewn on a cylinder arm machine. Let's analyze the thread range requirements. Wallet interiors are usually about 1 or 2 ounces per piece and doubled up. So, you need to be able to sew down to 2 or 3 ounces minimum. This calls for no larger than #69 bonded thread. The correct needle size for #69 thread is either #16 or #18, leather point. Wallet backs are typically about 4 or 5 ounces thick. Add this to a 2 to 4 ounce interior package and you get between 6 and 9 ounces total. This can be sewn with #92 bonded thread, using a #19 or #20 leather point needle. Belts and lined guitar straps are usually range between 8 and 12 ounces total, which is best sewn with #138 thread and a #23 needle. Lined, padded leather rifle slings have two separate parts that overlap where the tail attaches to the body. If each lined piece is about 6 to 8 ounces, the maximum thickness at the overlap area would be between 12 to 16 ounces, which #138 sews together nicely. If you have carved or stamped veg-tan bodies, that adds about 3 or 4 more ounces, for a total package of about 20 ounces (5/16 inch). These are best sewn with #207 bonded thread, using either a #23 or #24 needle. Messenger bags made from 5 ounce leather would have about 10 ounce seams to sew inside out. #138 thread will do fine. Synapsys Your work will range from 2 or 3 ounces up to about 20 ounces. Your thread requirements range from #69 through #207, but #138 will do. The Techsew 2700 or Cowboy CB227 are the best machines for these items, thicknesses and thread sizes. Both are cylinder arm machines, with 10.5" arms. They use the standard walking foot system 135x16 leather point and 135x17 regular point needles, available everywhere industrial sewing machines are sold. This needle system is available in sizes from 12 up to 25. Your work would require needles in sizes 16 or 18 through 23 or 24. The aforementioned machines max out at 3/8 inches under the feet. They are medium duty, triple feed, walking foot machines, with reverse. They take all manner of presser feet. If you decide that you want to sew holsters, weight belts, gun belts, knife sheathes, motorcycle saddlebags, and horse tack, that class of machine will be underpowered and incapable of sewing the thickness of material or thread required. This is where the CB3200, 3500, 4500, or 5500 come into their own. Ditto for the Cobra Class 3 and 4 and the Techsew 4100 and 5100. These are known as 441 clones, based upon the design of the Juki TSC-441, but at 1/3 to 1/2 the price. They sew items ranging from about 6 ounces, up to about 50 ounces (7/8"), with thread sizes #138 through #415, using needle sizes 23 through 27. While some people have success sewing lighter leather, with thinner thread and non-leather point needles, it requires a major readjustment to dumb them down for light work and thin needles-thread, then smarten them up for heavy work, needles and thread. Tis best to have one machine for light work, with thin thread and short needles and another for heavy work, with long, large diameter needles and thick, taut thread.

The 3-6-9 should do the trick. It gives you two output pulley/reduction options. Either will cause you to increase the top speed setting, yielding higher low speed torque.

That ad was posted in October 2012, 1 1/3 years ago. Have you used the inquiries email address provided at the end of the ad?

Due to its limited lift, the stirrup plate is impractical on the CB3200. The stirrup plate is 1/2 inch tall and the feet can only raise 5/8 inch above the low throat plate. The presser feet need at least 1/8 inch clearance to alternate up and down. Thus, if we subtract 1/2 (4/8) from 5/8 inch, we are left with 1/8 inch - 1/8 inch for foot alternation = zero thickness can be sewn. The amount of alternating foot lift can be varied by moving a crank that protrudes out of the back of the body, up or down in a curved slot on a housing on the back. In practice, one could move the presser foot control lever all the way up, reducing the amount of alternation to maybe 3/32 inches. This would allow you to use the stirrup plate to sew about 1/16 inch of leather, before the mechanism binds. One could buy a Cowboy, Cobra or Techsew stirrup plate and have it ground down to 3/8 inch rise, then reshaped and polished. This would allow the CB3200 to sew into about 8 ounces of leather.

You can dye Barbour's glazed linen thread. I used to do it using alcohol based leather dye. I think that 6 cord is the equivalent of #346. Campbell Randall sells Barbour's thread in one pound spools, in both left (straight needle machine) and right (curved or hand needle) twist. You can hand wax the thread as you prepare to sew.

No, it has two brushes. Two extras are included in the packaging, along with a spare brake pad. The motor has a multi-position speed limiter switch on the front panel, with a pointer knob. You can change the top speed in a second, even while you are sewing. I have one powering my CB4500. I ordered it from Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines with a 50mm pulley, which is not the standard size from the factory. Bob Kovar used a special interfacing collar to fit inside the new pulley, which has a 3/4 inch bore. The motor has a 38 inch type 3L v-belt feeding the large pulley on the speed reducer. The small pulley on the reducer feeds up to the machine. It can sew through 3/4 inch of veg-tan leather, with a #25 needle and #277 thread, at one stitch every five seconds, or into 1/4 inch double leather belts at 5 stitches per second. This is all easily controlled by your foot. For occasions where I need to sew patterns, like fishtails, I set it to the slowest setting and sew with the pedal all the way down. She chugs along at about one stitch per second. I hope this helps 'splain the motor.

From your work description I believe that a decent upholstery grade walking foot machine will suffice. Let me use a Chandler 406 RB as an example (there are many other brands similar to it). This machine was designed for use in the upholstery trade. It has triple feed that ensures that multiple layers stay aligned. This machine has a large bobbin, style M, that holds about 50% more thread than most industrial machine bobbins. It has a heavy upper tension spring to properly tension thicker thread than any home machine can handle. Best of all, the presser feet can walk to a height of at least 1/2 inch, or slightly higher. This allows the machine to actually sew 3/8 inch of compressed material. The next difference between upholstery grade machines and home or garment machines is the strength of the ciol spring that holds down the presser foot (feet). The Chandler in my example has a strong enough spring to hold down 3/8 inches of leather as the threaded needle ascends. Should the leather overpower the presser foot and lift with the needle, it will skip stitches and may bend or break the needle. The Chandler sells for about $1200 shipped, so it is within your budget. I hope this helps. When you gain more experience and take on work that is circular, you will need to move up to a cylinder arm machine. That is a whole nuther story.

I now use and recommend the Family Sew FS-550 servo motor that is sold by Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines. Ask for the 50mm (2 inch) pulley instead of the 75mm that is installed by default. It requires a special inside collar to allow 3/4 inch ID pulleys to be installed onto a roughly 5/8 inch shaft (actually some Metric diameter). You can re-use the interfacing collar with other 3/4 inch pulleys, should you wish to experiment. Tell the dealer what your existing motor pulley diameter is as well as the length of your v-belt. Sewing machine v-belts are type 3L (3/8") and are usually measured in inches, in the USA. The belt may be stamped with a 42, or M42, meaning 42 inches outside circumference, or some other number. Upholstery and garment making machines are normally setup with small hand wheel pulley and large motor pulleys. I often see 44 inch belts on these machines. After converting such a machine to use a FS-550, the belt will need to be shorter, one inch per inch less motor pulley diameter. So, if your existing pulley was 4 inches and the new motor is ordered with a 2" (50mm) pulley, the new belt needs to be 2 inches shorter.

The cutaway area is to allow thicker thread to push under and over the bobbin without binding.

First, make sure that the needle is ascending as the hook point approaches. It should intersect the needle, inside the cut-out scarf, about 1/8 inch above the eye. If that isn't happening, e.g, the hook intersects right at the level of the eye, the loop cannot form in time to be picked up. Ditto, if the hook arrives after the eye has passed it completely, or too low on the upstroke. How about your loop? Is is persisting as the hook reaches the scarf of the needle, above the eye? Or, is the loop dissolving before it can get picked off? A dissolving loop can be caused by too much swing of the check spring, or if you fail to feed the top thread around the spring at all. If the material is very sticky, the top thread might stick to the needle and the loop may not form at all. This sometimes happens when we use double-sided leather tape to hold layers together.

Ferg; The 3200 is a 441 type machine. It does not sew under about 6 ounces and is best used with #138 and larger thread.

I also have a modified walking foot machine, which when equipped with the longer system 190 needles can sew almost 1/2 inch. Before I modded it, it barely cleared 3/8 inches of leather. With the standard system 135x16 needles it only barely sews 7/16, after grinding down the inner top surface of the presser foot. The modification involved routing out the back of the head to allow the walking foot crank arm to lift higher. Despite this alteration, the machine struggles with #207 thread.

The company has two names: Campbell-Bosworth and Campbell-Randall. Bostitch is a stapler company. You can use any thread you want to in a Campbell lockstitch machine. But, bonded polyester has a softer hand than bonded nylon and works better with its tension mechanism. Ideally, one should use glazed linen thread, run through liquid Lax-Wax, in these machines.