Wizcrafts

Tom; You need to use cotton or polyester over cotton thread and the tiniest needle that will pass it without shredding it. That would normally translate to standard sewing thread with a #11 or 12 needle. The thread is about half the diameter of #69 and is not bonded. The thread has to give as the mask flexes. The needle holes must be filled with thread to prevent germs, moisture from patients and other pathogens from entering through the needle holes. The needles should be standard round point, not leather. This kind of work is best performed on a drop feed or needle feed straight stitch machine. Walking foot machines tend to push cloth into the feed dog hole. Don't forget to disinfect the sewing machine body, table, throat plate, feed dog, presser foot/feet, needle and top and bottom thread and the shuttle before you start sewing. The masks need to be sterilized before delivery and don't forget to include bendable metal nose strips of some kind.

CowboyBob from Toledo Industrial Sewing Machine, or Gregg from Keystone Sewing can probably help you with those screws.

Post machines are great for sewing objects that are curved, like hats and for bag bottoms. I use my post machine whenever a cylinder arm or patcher can't feed in the right direction, or when sewing bag bottoms. The only problem with using a post machine exclusively is that there is no flat work surface. Also, unless you have a presser foot with an edge guide on it, or install (drill and tap) a drop down edge guide onto the back of the left side of the head, there is no way to maintain a straight line other than your own hands. Most post machine buyers use them to sew shoe uppers. Others make hats and caps Still others make bags on them. I use mine to sew patchers onto caps. There are three common feed systems on post machines: drop feed with a fixed foot, roller feed (some top and bottom driven) and compound feed walking foot. Shoe and boot makers prefer a roller foot because it give great visibility of where the needle is hitting the work. However, unless the roller is fairly wide it doesn't always hold down veg-tan leather as the needle ascends. Top and bottom driven rollers are able to keep multiple layers aligned and force feed slick-bottom materials. I prefer a walking foot post bed machine, which I have in my Singer 168w101. It uses all the ubiquitous presser feet available for the model 111w155. These include spring loaded edge guide outside feet, available in distances from 1/8 to 5/16 inch from the needle. The wide feet hold down up to about 5/16 inch of medium temper leather, vinyl, or webbing. I can sew 3/8 inch of compressible material with it. A fixed flat foot is less desirable for leather and vinyl because it tends to fight the bottom feed and drag the material on top. This feed is best limited to cloth or webbing sewing. I know nothing about the Siruba brand.

I and many others here are currently using the Family Sew FS-550s servo motor, with a 2" pulley, shown here. It has a front mounted dial to limit the top speed. The slowest speeds are a little lacking on torque, so the slow speed punching power will depend on the diameter of the pulley on the hand-wheel on the machine. If the machine pulley is 4" diameter, you will get double the torque and be able to sew about 1 to 2 stitches per second before it stalls out. Adding a speed reducer will double or triple the speed reduction/torque multiplication. It also makes it harder to hand wheel the machine without powering up the motor. Speed reducers are listed further down the above linked page. Any change in the motor or its pulley will require a different length v-belt.

I think you should contact Consew dealers and see if any of them know of a binder that fits that machine.

That model doesn't show any results. Are you sure that isn't your serial number and not the model? If in doubt, post a picture of the front of the machine.

I was able to find one instruction manual that shows how to thread your machine. It is on this website. I hope this helps. If you need any more assistance, please become a member of Leatherworker.net and post your questions in our Leather Sewing Machines forum. Note, your machine is NOT a leather sewing machine and may receive few replies, if any. All posts in the Help Wanted section require approval from a moderator before they can be seen. This could take quite a while.

We do have a section called the Marketplace where members can post items for sale for leather work. But, these are preferably items owned by the member or a friends of a member. And, if you post about items on Craigslist, those posts are removed when the items sell, or the seller decides to abandon the ad. If you do post about such 3rd party machines for sale and the original ad is removed, it is your responsibility to request deletion, or to update your post to let people know that the items are no longer available.

Can you adjust the position of the control arm to get some free play before the motor engages? If so, make it sew! If not, open up the end of the motor with the control arm and remove the brake pad. This will give you at least 1/4 inch of free play. If you just need to hand wheel some projects, wind the belt off the machine pulley, or raise the motor belt tension adjuster nuts high enough to relieve the friction on the belt..

Indeed, there was a discussion about using bobbin tension gauges back in November and December.

The problem with using industrial threads in domestic sewing machines is that they weren't designed with suitable shuttle clearances and tension springs. Also, the thread top tensioner is usually different and is expecting to have cotton, polyester, or polycore thread wrapped around it. Bonded nylon thread throws a wrench into the works because it isn't as flexible. That typed (as opposed to "said"), I have had good success running #69 (T70) bonded nylon thread in Singer Class 15 and Class 127 machines. I've had less success with Class 66 and 221 machines. When I was repairing domestic machines as a sideline, I never tried testing a plastic body machine with nylon thread. It caused too much trouble and home sewing customers don't usually have industrial thread.

It sounds like hand sewing thread. Using waxed thread on a regular sewing machine is a really bad idea. It sticks to guides, rollers and springs and gums up the eye of the needle. It can also get stuck in the shuttle or the tab on the bottom of the throat plate It is also possible that the machine doesn't have enough clearance in the shuttle for Tkt 20 (bonded 138) thread. This size thread requires a #22/140 needle for cloth and a #23/160 for leather. The eye in these needles will easily pass Tkt 20 thread. What size needle are you using that is hard to thread through the eye? Consult this needle and thread chart for the best combinations for various sizes of thread.

If there is any means of adjusting the check spring, try lengthening its throw a bit to keep the top thread under some tension as the take-up lever and needle move down. If that spring lets the thread loose too soon it can get under the point of the needle and shred. Does a decent loop form as the needle begins to ascend from BDC? If not you might try retarding the timing a few degrees to see if you can get a bigger loop for the hook to pick off. Are you using a leather point needle? What size is the needle? What type and size is the thread? There is a handy needle and thread chart here.

96 dpi is fine for forum use. It will reduce the file size to stay within the forum's upload limit. I don't know about InfranView, but Corel's Paintshop Pro has additional "Chroma Subsampling" optimizations for reducing the filesize with minimal loss of clarity. As an example, I loaded a 1648x1004 px jpg into PSP and began optimizing before re-saving it. Using 15% quality reduction, along with Chroma Subsampling of YCbCr = 4x2 1x1 1x1, the original file gets reduced from 4.34 mb to 346 kb - with barely noticeable artifacts in a few dark areas !!! The DPI on this image is 300.

At a minimum, for a 10 ounce belt, you can use #138 bonded nylon thread, top and bottom, with a #23 leather point needle. This is usually the upper limit for your average upholstery grade walking foot machine. This weight thread has a 22 pound breaking strength. Some higher end walking foot machines may allow you to use #207 thread. Others may clear #207 on top as long as you have #138 in the bobbin. Sixteen ounce belts are a quarter inch thick. This thickness can easily hide the knots from #277 thread, top and bottom. This is beyond the capacity of upholstery grade machines. You'll need a holster/harness stitcher that has an open shuttle and very heavy take-up components. The aforementioned Cowboy CB3200 meets this requirement at an affordable price point (relatively speaking). Read the specs and look at the photos of the machine. This will give you some perspective about what type of machine you need to sew thicker leather.

800x600, 900x1200, or even 400x600 are best for small file size uploads. The jpg quality can be 85% before pixelation becomes noticeable. DPI applies to gifs more than jpgs. Standard resolution, as opposed to high def is preferred for web page photos. On web pages I create, I usually create two sizes per photo, using the smaller image (~300 to 400 px wide) on page and expanding it with the larger image via a clicked/tapped lightbox script. Most smartphone cameras no longer offer these smaller resolutions (my Samsung doesn't). So, unless you shoot with an actual digital camera that does allow for small res's, use a photo editor to reduce the dimensions and quality. I use Paintshop Pro, as well as FastStone Photo Resizer to edit images.

Your Juki uses the same needles and "G" size bobbins as the Singer 111w155. The needles are System 135x17 (round point for cloth) and 135x16 (leather points). They are sold by every industrial sewing machine dealer who sells walking foot machines. Your machine also uses the same feet as the Singer 111w155.

Try turning it counterclockwise. There are grooves on the shaft and a stud on the inside of the knob that rides between the grooves in the shaft. it is common for the grooves to chip or break over the decades since these machines were built. This makes it hard to not only remove the shaft, but to adjust the stitch length by rotating it. If the grooves are damaged, try using a combination of turning and pulling on the knob. I take from your mention of removing all the screws that you also removed the heavy duty spring under the cap screw inside the head, under the access plate and loosened the set screws on the opposite side of it. BTW: If the grooves are broken, there are no new replacements. You'll have to find another similar machine that has a good shaft to replace the bad one. Since this is also the main shaft, there are a lot of parts that will need to be removed and replaced. Alternately, just preset the stitch length in one position and leave it there.

I wasn't being polite to the spammer. I'm leaving this online in case they come back to see if anybody reacted to their one and only post.

A Teflon foot will help feed leather and vinyl. But, all it takes is one or two accidental foot drops, under spring pressure, onto the feed dog teeth to put an end to its usefulness. A better foot has a steel frame and steel rollers inside it. This foot feeds even better than Teflon. The next upgrade would be an actual industrial sewing machine roller foot conversion kit. This consists of a flip up foot with either a 3/4 or 1 inch diameter (sorry about the inches!) roller on ball bearings, a single row feed dog that's inline with the roller, and a throat plate to match.

@BellaBee To do the @ thing, type @username - noting that the username is cAsE sEnsiTive and there is no space after the @. If you do this correctly the member's username will appear under the typing. Click/tap on that highlighted name and the typing will become a link. In my case the link becomes @Wizcrafts

That post was spam.

@BellaBee It's beautiful, but is a bottom feed tailoring machine for cloth. Don't waste your time, or ruin the machine trying to sew leather over a couple of ounces thickness. To do that may require a roller or Teflon presser foot. It will likely be limited to T70 bonded thread, with a #110 needle.

Here is a video showing a synchronized binder in action on a properly setup machine.

Matt described how a 2 motion feed dog works. What he left out is that the reason some of these machines have a 2 motion feed dog is because they are intended to be used with synchronized binder attachments. The forward backward motion helps push the material into the edge binding to get a tighter lay, especially going around curves.