Wizcrafts

I've got 8 foot pedals and 9 knee levers! on my steel guitar!

Back off of the top pressure spring! It is way to tight for such soft leather. This is done by turning the hollow threaded screw on top of the machine, over the outside presser foot. It compresses a heavy coli spring inside the head. You can back it off until the marks are subdued, then use the collar nut to keep it in that position until you need to crank it down for harder leather. If you unscrew it too far it will pop out! Use a magic marker to indicate where the last good threads are, in relation to the screw position.

You misunderstood what I meant when I mentioned 10mm. That is how thick the machine can sew, if everything is properly adjusted. 10mm equals 3/8 inch. The length of the needle has a lot to do with this. If the seller can adjust the stitch length to get 6mm in forward and reverse, that is great. This is about 4 stitches per inch! But, 5 is just fine.

You will want to be able to sew as few as 5 stitches per inch (25mm), meaning 5mm per stitch. Furthermore, this should happen at the thickness you actually are going to sew. The machine should be able to sew about 10mm of leather. If this machine cannot sew 5 stitches per inch, or sew into 10mm, something is misadjusted, or it is worn out.

Hotrod; There is a different place on the forum where people should list sewing machines for sale. It is listed under Marketplace - Items for sale- Machinery - Sewing and stitching (New/Refurbished or Used). This part of the forum is for discussing the use, viability, or attributes of leather sewing machines, or pointing folks towards replacement and repair parts and accessories for those machines, not for actual commercial sales (although we do sometimes screw up and list stuff here by accident, myself included).

You first need to acquire the sewing machine and learn to operate it it with what is on it. Then, worry about a knee lever. Ask if the foot lift pedal (shoe shaped) is hooked up to the lifter arm on the back of the machine. If so, you have a foot lift instead of a knee lift. There is still going to be a finger operated lift lever on the back, behind the presser foot.

Yes, that should be strong enough. But, have the seller demonstrate it running at 1 stitch per second. If the motor can slow down to 1 per second, or less, then speed up to about 5 or 6 per second,without changing any settings, it will power the machine through leather. You will need leather point needles, correctly sized for the size of thread you are going to use. There is a thread and needle chart here.

Consew is a sewing machine and motor brand. They make motors with different power ratings, like 1/3, 1/2 and 3/4 horsepower. Motors are also rated at a particular RPM. Leather sewing is usually performed with slow speed and/or gear reduced motors, whereas garments are sewn at breakneck speeds with fast motors having large pulleys.

Most industrial sewing machines use a knee lever to lift the presser foot. All machines also have a lever on the back of the head that lifts the foot and locks it in the up position. Pressing down a a floor foot lift pedal, or mashing the knee lever to the right will lift the foot out of the up position indent and drop it onto the material being sewn. If the machine in question has no knee lever, the shoe shaped pedal is needed to lift the presser foot all the way up, which releases the tension disks.

Baby steps Randy. Learn to control the pedal with your toe and heel, at about 2700 RPM on the readout. This will yield ~3+ stitches per second top speed. As you become more skilled with the speed pedal and your foot positions, you can increase the motor to top speed and use your heel to keep it going slowly. If you have a fancy stitching project that only needs slow speeds, reduce the motor speed to about 400 RPM. This will give you just under 1 stitch per second, with the pedal all the way down. If the machine shakes at high speed, check the following settings: Alignment of the small reducer pulley to flywheel pulley (adjust sideways until directly in line); Alignment of the motor pulley to the large reducer pulley (adjust until inline); Lift of the alternating feet can be reduced to reduce shaking (raise movable crank on back to top position in slot for lower lift); Make sure that all nuts and bolts are as tight as possible, especially in pedestal assembly; Ensure that the floor is flat, or that any clearances under the rollers are compensated for zero slack.

Top thread bunching up on the underneath is almost always caused by one of these things: No tension, or too loose beehive spring tension in top thread disks Excessive spring tension on bobbin thread Bobbin thread jammed against bobbin case or shuttle race Failure to hold back the threads, or at least the top thread, as you start to sew.

Unless the presser feet are way out of time with the feed dog, they won't cause skipped stitches. But, a little mis-synchronization can cause gathering of the material. However, you stated that the machine sews cloth just fine. So, the feed timing must be pretty close to optimum. In this answer, the feed dog is what you call "the bottom teeth." Your type of machine also has top teeth, under the presser feet. What you don't have is compound feed, where the needle and inside foot move in sync with the feed dog. Your material is fed by a combination of top and bottom feed, via the dog and outer presser foot. If the tension is too light on the foot, it may slip before the feed dog has pulled the work all the way back. If the top and bottom feed are not synchronized, the material may gather. Further, if the timing of the feed dog causes it to drop before the outer foot stops moving backwards, the stitches can actually back up a bit and become shorter than they should. The loop that is formed in the eye of the needle is dependent on a couple of factors. One is the timing between the needle's eye, as it begins its ascent from the bottom of its stroke, and the point of the hook as it passes by the gap in the eye. If the hook arrives too late, the loop dissolves and no stitch happens. If the hook passes by too soon, no loop has formed yet. Or, the hook may pass the needle at the right moment, but the needle may have moved up or down due to pounding or loose needle bar screws. If this happens the loop may form and dissolve above or under the point of the hook and not get picked up properly. Another factor that affects the loop is the amount of motion and spring pressure on the "check spring." This is the movable spring that is either around or under your primary tension disks. Your top thread goes around the tension disks, then around and out of the check spring, up or down to a guide arm, then up to the take-up lever. If you fail to pass the thread around that spring, or feed it down through a guide arm, if one is present, the spring action will be off and missed stitches may occur. Finally, some thread is very springy and may twist out of thread guides, tensioners, springs, etc and may even twist over in the eye of the needle. If you unscrew the throat cover plate you can watch what the thread is doing as the needle ascends and the hook meets the cutout above the eye. Watch the loop. It will tell you if something is wrong. You'll just need to find out what that something is.

I'm afraid that you had the best machine for your money, in that Consew. The portable walking foot machines are going to disappoint you and probably cause you grief.

Try using a #18 leather point needle with #69 bonded nylon thread. Reduce the upper and lower thread tensions to avoid puckering/gathering the soft leather. Apply only enough presser foot pressure to hold the leather down between stitches, as the needle ascends.

If your servo motor can't be controlled at slow speeds, return it, or get rid of it and buy a better motor (there are lots of better servo motors). Or, invest in the speed reducer and give up the top speed. As for waxed thread, your machine cannot sew with it. Waxed thread gums up everything along the path and the eye of the needle. No loop will be formed in the eye of the needle and you will ruin your projects. The largest thread that your machine can practically handle is probably #69 bonded nylon. Impractically, you may be able to use #138 on top and #92 in the bobbin. Your machine should work very well with denim or other cloth items, but not smooth leather or smooth vinyl It isn't made to sew very much thickness either. This is a high speed needle feed and drop feed machine, with a fixed slotted presser foot. If you want to sew leather holsters and sheathes, save up for a larger leather stitcher, known as a 441 clone. I have a Cowboy CB4500. Others use Cobra and Techsew 441 clones. These machines sew up to 7/8 inch of leather, at incredibly slow speeds, and can handle #346 or even #415 bonded nylon thread. Most holster makers on these forums use one of the major brands of a 441 clone (Juki TSC 441).

You may need to tighten down the presser foot spring to keep hard leather from lifting with the needle. Some thread is springier than it should be, especially some black thread. Keep an eye on the top thread, from the spool to the needle. It can twist over itself, pop out of tension disks, or wrap around the bottom tension disk assembly, causing excessive top tension. It happens to me every now and then, usually when I sew at higher speeds, which leads to vibration of the machine, table and thread stand.

A #14 needle will pass #46 thread quite easily. You may be able to even use a #12 needle with that thread. I think a #10 or 11 needle will be fine with #33 thread. But, reduce the tensions on top and in the bobbin, to avoid breaking the tiny thread.

Badly bonded thread? Hook point splitting the top thread as it picks it up?

You should move down to #138 thread if you want to sew 4 to 6 ounces. #207 would be as large as you could really.sew at that thinness. You should use a #23 needle for #138 thread, or a #24 for #207 thread, top and bottom.

Yeah, I Grok your pain. There is a little flat blade screw inside a hole in the bobbin case, forward from the tension spring screw. The screw inside that recess locks down the tension screw. Use the small screw driver that came with the machine to loosen the set screw, then adjust the tension screw for more bobbin tension. When you are happy with the back pressure, tighten the set screw to keep the tension screw from backing out.

If the photo is taken from the top of the leather, either the top thread is wrapped incorrectly around something it shouldn't be wrapped around, including itself, or a post, or one of the 2 disk sets, or the bobbin thread has come out from under the bobbin tension spring. If the photo represents the bottom of the leather, either the top thread has come out of the tension disks, or is not feeding through the take-up lever, or the bobbin thread is too tight, or the needle is too big, or the thread is too big for 6 ounces of leather.

Make sure that the thread doesn't bind in the eye of the #14 needle. This might be a tight fit for #69 thread, unless it is wound and bonded tightly.

I had to re-acquire all of my current stock of sewing machines from scratch, starting in 2009. My first good machine was a National 300N flatbed walking foot machine, made in Japan. It is similar to the Consew 206RB and Chandler 406RB. While it "can" sew with #207 thread, it does so with some difficulty, compared to #138. It simply cannot sew with #277 thread. The machine is good for slightly over 3/8 inch of material, including leather. The walking foot came with a clutch motor, which although I could feather it down to 1 stitch per second, it was stressful on my ankle. So, I replaced the motor with a SewPro 500GR, from Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines. My next important purchase was a Singer long arm, large bobbin 29K172 patcher, on a treadle base. I use it every week to sew patches onto motorcycle gang vests. My third best machine purchase was my Union Lockstitch Machine. It sewed 3/4 inch as is, but I modified it to sew 7/8 inch. It is thread-agnostic, as long as I have the right size needle and awl. It is currently set up with #346 thread. My fourth and truly best machine acquisition was my Cowboy CB4500. It is now in my leather shop and is used every day to sew anything from cuffs on jeans, to zippers in jackets, to belts, gun belts, weight belts, to holsters and sheathes. I just sewed together a 3/4 inch thick knife sheath, with #277 thread, top and bottom, using a #25 S point Schmetz needle. My next purchase was a Singer 31-15, which I use for flat work and material.

I'm glad to have helped you Andrew! Sew On!

Manual, schmanual. Try balancing the reverse ratio yourself. Here's how I do it... On the back of the head you will see a crank protruding and clamping into a slotted block. That crank's position in the long slot sets the amount of lift of the alternating feet. There should be a 6 sided slotted bolt on a shaft protruding from the right side of the slotted block. If you loosen that bolt the presser feet can be moved up or down manually. What I do when the stitch length doesn't match in fwd/rev is to lower the inside foot a bit, so it hits the top of the material at about the same time as the needle point makes contact. This causes the stitch length to increase both ways, but more so in reverse. You will have to try different contact timings until you find the best one for bi-directional sewing into the same holes. It may be that you have to set the inside foot to make simultaneous contact with the top of the feed dog itself, without any leather under the feet.