Wizcrafts

Juki makes the actual 441 machine. It is now model TSC-441, which sells for over $5,000 US. These machines are setup to sew thick cloth, webbing, parachutes, tents, tow ropes and other thick cloth and man-made materials. They require modifications for change them into dedicated leather sewing machines. The first mod is the presser feet and feed dog. Then the motor system, then the lift system. The rest is classified.

I seems to me that I get better loops using Schmetz needles than Organ. Both sew fine in forward, but sometimes when I sew in reverse, Organ needles may form a smaller loop than Schmetz and I get skipped stitches. Spinning the work 180 degrees and sewing in forward solves the problem, which should not occur at all on a well-timed machine. I notice this issue mostly on my Cowboy CB4500 and National 280N walking foot machines and my buddy's Cobra Class 4. The Schmetz needles seem to form a bigger loop to the right and skip less. I wish I could get them in all the sizes I use on these machines (in leather point), but I sometimes have to use what I can get at the time. I played around with the timing on a couple of horizontal axis machines and found something very interesting happening. As the needle begins to ascent on a closely timed machine, a cutaway in the shuttle driver causes the loop to be formed just above the bottom of the eye of the needle. If that cutaway section hits too soon, it blocks the formation of the loop for a few critical degrees of rotation. If it hits too late, nothing is added to assist the formation of the loop. There is an exact moment and time and space when the cutaway in the driver aids in the formation of a good loop. Every machine will be different and may need to be fine-timed by eye and hand rotation. This trick only seems to work if the shuttle driver has a cutaway area facing the needle and reaches the eye on the upstroke, just before the pick-up point intersects the eye and loop. I may take a picture of this positioning and post it in a reply.

You'll have to ask someone who actually has that machine and has tried it. I can tell you that I have a National walking foot machine that I modified to sew leather and it will not sew #277 thread into 3/8 inch without great difficulty and some skipped stitches. You would have to specifically have the machine adjusted and times for just that thread and needle size. The power required to punch through this much leather is beyond many motors, unless there is a speed reducer wheel between the motor and machine. Some members have modified the flywheels on theirr walking foot machines to use very large diameter pulleys sold a tractor supply stores. Those machines sew about 2 stitches per second, top speed and can punch through 3/8 inch+ with a #25 needle and #277 thread. Frankly, you would be better off with this type of machine for sewing 3/8+ inch with #277 or 346 thread.

I was referring to finding #26 leather point needles in series 135x16. I know that this needle type is very common. It is the #26 leather point that is not so easy to get in this series. Still, I'll bet that Ronnie, Gregg or Bob have some, in a dusty drawer, somewhere.

That would work a lot better. I used to have a pack of #26 needles, in type 135x16 and the machine had a hard time penetrating even 1/4 inch of leather. The pounding caused the needle bar to move in its mount, throwing the timing out. The needle got stuck in the leather from friction and the thread became ratted. It was not worth the trouble it caused. There are machines that are set up to sew with big needles and thicker thread and it is best to use them for #277 or larger thread jobs.

I should warn you that if you buy a machine from China and have it drop shipped to you, it will be a crapshoot as to its sewability out of the box. Most of the dealers I have spoken to have to spend between 4 and 8 hours fixing problems with Chinese machines and adjusting them, tightening loose screws and setting the needlebar and timing, filing bad castings, adding paint where it is missing, assembling the motor and table and balancing the tensions to sew off test samples.

My bad. So, there is a GA3-1 machine after all! I can't see any of the usual walking foot parts in that reversed photo. I guess you will have to go see for yourself. If it does have walking feet, there will be inside and outside feet that alternate up and down, while one moves forward and backward, lifting between stitches. The outside foot may be pulled, or on a spring the fires it forward as the feeder drops. These are pseudo-walking foot machines. Bring a few 8-10 ounce strips of leather to see how much leather can fit under the foot. If they have thread, try sewing the stack of leather. It should be capable of sewing up to 28-30 ounces of leather. I hope for your sake that the photo has been flipped and not the machine itself.With the manual visible in photo #2, it sure looks like a left handed machine to me.

If you use a #26 leather point needle, you may be able to form knots with #346 on top and #277 in the bobbin. Finding these needles is like finding hen's teeth.

That is a misnomer. The machine is actually a GA5-1. Our dealer, Techsew, sells it with reverse, as the Techsew GA5-1R, already setup to sew leather. Our Dealer Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines sells a comparable machine known as the Cowboy CB2500. These machines are based on the Singer 45K machines, of long, long ago (The Old Lamplighter days) and can sew 7/16 inch of leather with very thick thread. They are bottom feeders only and will mark the bottom layer. A good spooning or pounding with a Cobbler's Hammer will usually hide the tooth and needle pucker marks.

I guess the one I used to have was missing that feeder. I had to move the shoes manually to stitch them. PITA! It would be nice to have another one, but RedDevil76 may want it more than I do. I would rather have a curved needle Frobana.

YES! Where did you get it? Does it sew and move the leather along on its own, or do you have to move the shoe manually?

I used to have a hand operated sole stitcher, with a vertical up/down lever on the needlebar, that used a huge needle like the one pictured in this topic. It sewed with 6 cord pre-waxed linen thread, just along the edge, one stitch for each pull up/down on the lever. I wish I didn't give it away back then. It clamped onto the edge of a sewing machine table and stood upright, about 10 or so inches. I'm guessing that the needle was about 2.5 inches long and about 3/32 inch wide at the top.

I got mine from Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines. They have just about every part made for Singer and Adler patchers. I imagine that other dealers may have them also.

I have a real shop gremlin story to tell ya. About 6, 7 months ago I was working at M&M Leather, in Flint, Mi, making rifle slings. We use bone folders to secure and shape the glued on suede linings to the backs of the straps, especially around the foam pads. Well, I recall finishing the bone folder work, putting it down and sewing the sling. That was the last sling in the run and I went home shortly after finishing sewing it. The next day the owner called me up and bitched me out because he couldn't find the bone folder I had been using. I told him where I left it. But, it was nowhere to be found! I scratched my head, my beard and other parts, trying to remember where I set down the damned folder. When I came in to work later on, I had to search the entire shop and my person, in vain. No folder! This folder was special; maybe 30 years old, with peculiar grooves on the fat end. My buddy was pissed. Two weeks later, while working at the same location, on a new run of rifle slings, for no particular reason, I looked down. Something white caught my eye. It was the missing bone folder, standing up against a very old gallon of dye. It fell off the table as I removed that last sling, weeks earlier, bounced off my jeans un-noticed, and landed in the upright position against a bottle on the shelf below! I still believe that gremlins caused this to happen and hid the folder on purpose to torment us. The odds of it happening the way I described are almost infinitely small.

Unison feed, compound feed and triple feed all mean the same thing. The needle, inside foot and a feed dog move in synchronization, with an outside foot raising during this motion and lowering after each stitch, to hold down the material as the needle ascends. The two presser feet alternate up and down, allowing the machine to walk over different thicknesses on its own (within its mechanical limits or user settings). Triple/unison/compound feed is extremely positive and keeps multiple layers in alignment. As for the first part, where you want to sew golf bags, we've been through this before, right? If you want to produce the same quality sewing results as the major manufactures produce, you will need some expensive and specialized sewing equipment. See the following list: 36 inch cylinder arm transverse feed, chainstitch needle and awl machine, made by Puritan. 36 inch cylinder arm regular forward feed chainstitch needle and awl machine, made by Puritan 5 cord Barbour's Irish Linen Thread (or best equivalent) run through liquid wax in the wax pots - or, #207 or #277 pre-lubricated bonded polyester thread Appropriate needles and awls for these thread types and sizes. Why do I recommend Puritan machines for this job? Because they are chainstitch machines, without bobbins that will run out while you are sewing inside a 36 inch long golf bag. As large as the 441 class bobbins are, they only hold so much thread, in larger sizes. Do you want to have to remove the bag to change a bobbin halfway down a 36" seam? If you intend to go into production, you cannot be dinking around with changing bobbins and removing a bag, then trying to resume the stitching without it being noticeable. A chainstitch machine only runs out when the top spool is finished, which you can see happening. The lockstitch machine workaround would be removing the bobbin cover between bags and pulling the bobbin halfway out of the bobbin case, to visually check how much thread is left. Eventually, one could learn how many bags you can sew on a full bobbin, as your machine defines full. Why transverse feed? The seams are top stitched all the way along the side on the bag. You need a machine with transverse feed to sew up the arm. Period. Why another machine with standard feed? To sew around the body and to sew in the end cap. I'm not sure if Puritan makes their machines with closed eye systems. You'd have to send them an email about this. If you want to use lockstitch, closed eye machines, counting stitches, rather than chainstitch/needle-awl machines, you can order them from a Cowboy dealer. They are special order and come in 36 inch arm lengths for transverse and regular feed. You have a Cowboy dealer, Jim Saddler, in Childers, Qld, Australia. Jim is a member of this forum. Look him up via his profile and contact him about the right machines for the work you wish to do. Before you can even begin to make golf bags, you need to buy a good one and disassemble it to see how it was put together. Then, make your own pattern that is not a copy of someone else's work and have clicker dies constructed to cut out the pieces. Then have someone with a 40 ton clicker press punch out the parts from your leather. All you have to do is sew the parts on the specialized machines. I held off mentioning this for the last item, but you may or may not also need a bell knife skiver machine. They are used to reduce the thickness of leather where the seams mate, or overlap. They go for between 1.5 and 3 k, depending on the quality, capabilities and feed type. You should be able to get this into production for 10 to 20 grand if you make good deals.

Trolls are responsible for re-threading his machine. They did the dirty deed in the midst of the night, then hid under a nearby bridge and watched in excited expectation to see his bewilderment as the needle poked holes in the leather and nothing else! This is how it actually was! And don't fancy I exaggerate, it was told to me by the Chinese Plate!

Did you have to force the machine to complete a stitch yesterday? Did you change thread, on top or in the bobbin? Is it the same needle as you used yesterday? Is the needle bent or dull or does it have a burr? Is the eye of the needle on the right side? Has the top thread jumped out of the upper or lower tension disks? Is there any twisting over of the top thread, before it reaches the needle? Are you sewing Biothane?

As long as the bottom piece is fairly stiff leather, and you choose the best thread and needle for the thickness, a 441 clone will dumb-down. However, if the bottom layer is soft it may get caught in the huge feed dog and even huger cutout in the standard throat plate. If this happens, you would have to remove the feed dog and replace the throat plate with a flat plate with a narrow slot. Ideally, one should have more than one sewing machine for professional leather work. One would be used for work up to 5/16 inch, with #92 thread and a #20 needle, or #138 thread and a #22 needle. The other would be setup for work exceeding 5/16 inch, with #277 thread and a #25 needle.

That question is best asked of the dealers who represent those brands. Others may have opinions, but sometimes the facts change.

Until I got my CB4500, with its 16.5 inch arm, I was limited to 12" inside the harp, on my Union Lockstitch machine. That coincides with the space available on the standard Adler 205, until a few years ago. While 12" is plenty of clearance for most projects, it is not enough when you are sewing a double leather weight lifting belt, or a gun belt that has fishtail stitching. The leather is very stiff at 14 to 16 ounces combined and has a hard time bending to fit inside the 12" harp. A 16.5 inch area makes it much easier to turn the work around. The same applies to large Western holsters. I would definitely recommend that anybody pondering the savings of a few hundred dollars go for the most space they can afford. If you are building large double leather straps, with fancy inside stitching, go for a 25 inch arm machine.

That's great news Kevin! Don't try to power through a jam next time. I usually hand-wheel backwards to try to clear a thread or material jam. Be sure you tighten those set screws as much as possible to keep her in time.

No, this is a loose screw issue. Gotta eat dinner first. Go have a brewsky. I'll be back...

It is time to get out the schematics for your machine and compare notes. Do you have the exploded view and all the timing details on 8.5 x 11 pages?

Are you sure it is bent? Mine only protrudes a little over a silly millimeter. If it really is bent and if you got the blanket foot set with your machine, you can swap feed dogs until you get a replacement for the bent smooth one.