Wizcrafts

I suffer from the same affliction!

Not after it times out following your initial posting. I think that time frame is under a half hour. What did you want changed?

You'd also have to pay a considerable Customs and Duty charge before taking delivery.

The CB3200 is a step down from the 4500. It only sews up to 1/2 inch. I believe that the TS-4800 is similar to the Cobra 26 and Cowboy CB-1341 (aka: 6900).

@CowboyBobprobably has that hook in stock. Call him and ask. The phone number is in his signature.

I suggest that you read my blog article about dumbing down a Cowboy, Cobra, or other Juki TSC-441 clone.

Contact @CowboyBob about this. Or, start a new topic and wait for a professional dealer to reply. Yours is now a non-standard machine. I also have a Singer walking foot machine that @CowboyBob converted to use a Juki U bobbin. He knows the parts and alterations involved in this conversion.

I have a Singer Class 18 left handed machine and it is for light duty sewing with thin thread. I keep #69 thread and a #18 needle in it. I think it maxes out at about 1/4 inch of soft temper leather.

The Singer 97-10 machines were often carried on military aircraft and were used to sew and repair tow straps that parachuted people and equipment onto battle fields.

I don't know if this will work for you, but upholstery leather is sometimes sold as whole hides of 50 square feet or more.There is some heavy weight upholstery leather that might be tough enough for chap use. You could use the left overs to recover a chair or two.

I will move this to the Suppliers section of the forum. This section requires approval before any posts or replies appear.

I use "chap" leather. It is available in thin and standard, where the thin chap is about 4-5 ounces and the thick is about 5-6 ounces. There is even thicker sometimes, up to maybe 6-7 oz. Check with Springfield Leather, Zack White Leather, Weaver Leather, Hide House and ALD.

I also have the narrow throat plate and feed dog set that @RockyAussie makes. I installed it on my Cowboy CB4500 and it works like a charm. I can go from sewing a 3/4 inch holster, with thick #277 thread and a #25 needle, down to sewing a wallet, phone pouch, or chap leather project, with #92 thread, by changing to a #20 needle and backing off the foot pressure a bit. Yes, you have to purchase the narrow set as an add-on. But, to me it is worth it.

DFH is the handle of the member who posted the first reply to this topic, on January 10, 2019. Scroll UP.

I call this Poor Man's Reverse. Many of my old Singer sewing machines, with which I pay my bills, have this type of reverse! Only three of the 11 sewing machines in my shop have Rich Man's Reverse (via a lever).

This sentence reminds me of when I decided I needed a sewing machine to sew a leather vest I was making from a Tandy Leather pattern and using their chrome tan leather the salesman recommended. He told me that he had a nice Singer Slant Needle machine for sale on consignment. I went to the back to look it over and decided to try it out. He threaded it up, put a small sample cut of similar leather under the foot, pressed the pedal and immediately broke the needle into a dozen pieces! The motor smelled bad too after that event. The smell of hot wires. Anywho, the Tandy guy told me that I needed an industrial sewing machine. This began my search for a leather sewing machine. I let me fingers do the walking and found an industrial sewing machine dealer not far from the Tandy store. I told him what I wanted to sew and he told me that he had the exact machine I needed to sew leather and it was only $200!. An hour later I had a Singer 96k40,with a 20x48 inch table, a clutch motor, light and thread stand in my station wagon. I could hardly wait to get it home, drag in downstairs to the basement, set it up and begin sewing leather! But, I was in for some serious fetchin' up. The dealer had supplied me with a spool of black #69 bonded nylon thread and a pack of ten #18 round point needles. I broke all ten needles trying to feed and sew the vest, which dragged to a halt at every change of layers. The stitches varied in length all over the place. The holes were ugly and the thread bunched up on the bottom. But, he said it was just the machine I needed to sew leather! It must be so! I called him back and he told me that I bought the wrong type of feed. I needed a walking foot machine! Huh? I asked what that was and he told me he had one for sale. I asked if I could bring back the 96k40 in trade and he said NO, all sales are final! As I learned a few weeks later, the Singer 96k40, although an industrial sewing machine, was NOT a leather sewing machine. It was a tailoring machine for cloth garments and light ones at that. The "walking foot" machine he sold me, for $400 for the head only (shared table and knee lever), was a Singer 31-19 with a spring foot mechanism. It was from the early 1910s, but it sewed my layered vest without breaking any needles or having uneven stitch lengths. It was an eye opener for me. As archaic as the spring foot was, it worked. A year later I found and bought a Singer 111w155, which had an actual triple or compound feed walking foot mechanism. I thought that machine could sew anything made of leather, including holsters. But, again, I had some fetchin' up coming...

I used to have a Pfaff walking foot machine (1980s). I believe it took System 134-35 needles. These are slightly shorter than the System 135x16 used in Singer 111 and clone walking foot machines. System 135x16 needles are about 1 3/4 inches from stem to stern.

Basically, yes. The forum is Leatherworker.net and our requirements for sewing machines often far exceeds the capabilities of any domestic (household), quilting, or embroidery machine. There are other forums where those machines are discussed in detail. Even the auto upholstery and general upholstery trades have sub-forums dedicated to discussing sewing machines geared for their trade. Shoe makers and repairers have forums where they discuss machines and tools specific to those trades. A lot of new members, as well as hand sewers want to machine sew fairly thin projects, like wallets, tote bags, watch straps, belts and some pouches. A little later they get known and somebody asks them if they can build a holster or sheath. That's when the sh_t hits the fan with their under powered, upholstery grade, or incorrect feed type industrial, or domestic sewing machine. This section of the LWN is where those folks come to ask and learn about the type of sewing machine they need to sew thick and/or dense leather with thick thread and big needles. Most, as it frequently turns out, end up needing to sew over 3/8 inch of veg-tan leather with thread sizes from #207 UP. Domestic machines usually max out with #69 thread and will be lucky to sew 3/16 inch of veg-tan leather. Upholstery grade machines usually are at their extreme high end sewing 3/8 inch with #138 thread. This may help explain why nobody has discussed the Juki quilting machines you asked about. They are outside our typical scope of use. But, they are cute to look at! Kinda like a Singer Featherweight is cute to look at.

The reason those models haven't been discussed here is because this forum is dedicated to leather sewing machines. Those are not leather sewing machines! What few domestic sewing machines that are discussed here are usually somewhat able to sew 4 to 6 ounces of leather, if only under duress. Most of those are very old, cast iron body Singer machines with steel internal components. Oftentimes, these ancient machines can be found in antiques stores for a couple hundred bucks. If somebody toasts a $100 or $200 sewing machine they probably won't have a mental breakdown. Not so with a $1000+ Juki that was meant for light weight quilting and cotton garment work. Beware machines offered as "industrial strength" or "industrial quality." A sewing machine is either industrial or domestic. The only portable sewing machine I consider semi-industrial is the Sailrite, with the upgraded Worker B motor and Monster II balance wheel. Even this can only sew 1/4 inch of veg-tan leather and should have the optional knurled feet added on instead of the standard feet with aggressive teeth.. There is a hand cranked leather stitcher made by Cowboy. It is the Cowboy Outlaw. It might possibly do what you are looking to do. It costs about the same as the upgraded Sailrite.

If you can post a picture of the hooks on your machine we can point you to a source for the sockets.

That is the CB-6900.

A qualified no. The wax will gum up the eye of the needle, causing the thread strands to separate and shred (and gum up everything the thread touches). However, you may be able to sew a short run, with an oversize needle, if you remove the wax that builds up in the eye of the needle and on the tensioners, guides and hook. If you haven't bought a machine yet, and prefer a machine that uses waxed linen thread, consider a Campbell Lockstitch machine. It uses a separate needle and awl, with the needle having an open barb instead of a closed eye. This type of machine rarely jams or gums up if properly maintained. Back to the 441 types, they normally use dry, or pre-lubricated bonded nylon or bonded polyester thread. You can buy these threads from the dealers who sell the 441 clones and advertise here.

No. It isn't strong enough to sew veg-tan; just soft temper chrome tan and synthetics. The feed is bottom only which means the presser foot will drag against the leather and fight the bottom feed dogs, which normally have fine teeth for transporting light cloth. The machine has an oil pump which sits in an oil bath and needs to spin fast to distribute the oil. The maximum thread size would be #92 (15 pounds test). If you decide you must buy this high speed garment sewing machine and want it to sew soft temper leather, you'll be smart to convert it into a roller foot machine.

I want to point out an observation I've made over my decades of sewing. Unless the bobbin and top tensions are very light (think thin cotton thread), the needle often gets pulled slightly to the left at pick-off time. So, if the hook in that machine is set so it barely makes contact with an unthreaded needle, it will probably not make contact with the threaded needle as it sews material and gets pulled to the left. This fails if the tensions are so low that the needle isn't deflected by the thread. This puts the hook and needle in peril. Further, thicker thread will tend to pull the needle more than thinner thread.. I prefer to adjust the check spring for a big enough thread loop so that the hook never needs to be in contact with the needle to pick it off. I purposely bend the deflector shield if necessary to prevent the hook from contacting the needle.

The O.P. has a Pfaff 545, not a CB4500. The inline and paddle feet don't apply to him. Instead, he can look for a single right toe presser foot and a narrow inside foot that will get very close to hardware and raised shapes on the left.