Matt S

Depends on the price and convenience. 5 minutes down the road for €20, sure. It'd be worth it for the experience alone, I have spare motors knocking about and I love tinkering. However I'd be dubious about the condition of the machine due to the evident rust. If that's on the surface, what abuses lurk beneath?

My skiver also has a clutch motor, which looks like it powered Isaac Merrit Singer's first machine. I think it's 1450RPM 1/2Hp, single phase. The clutch pads used to squeal a bit but since sorting that I've had no problems with controlability. (Perhaps that's because mine has the knife set to turn fast and the feed wheel slowly. I wouldn't know, the previous owner did that and it works fine for me so I've not fiddled with that particular setting.) @DanishMan from your description it sounds as if the clutch for the feed wheel is separate from the motor, whereas the knife is turning continuously. Is that correct, or do you have a clutch built into the motor?

@PaxmanI would also suggest CS. I find the best thing is simply to put the manufacturer's part number into College's search box. The top result is normally the part I'm looking for.

Here is a machine I mounted on an old cutting board. It's a feed-up-the-arm so doesn't get used enough to warrant a table of its own. I mounted the servo on top so I can chuck it on the bench when I need to use it or keep it on the shelf otherwise. Same with the motor in these pictures, and a few others I have. It's pretty efficient and quick to adjust, whichever way up the motor is mounted.

I did something similar for the rivets I use for dog leads, among other products. The rivets need to very securely set through 8mm of leather. I had used up what little UK stock there was of 12x12mm DC solid brass. Nobody I spoke with wanted to or was able to obtain something similar so I went to Alibaba and contacted a few factories. TLDR I got a shipment of 10mm head 12mm shank DC solid brass without too much fuss. All communication was in English. The smaller head actually looks neater and these are a much better unit price than for the 12x12s. Minimum order was 1,000 rivets.

I agree wholeheartedly with your views on free speech (something that's being eroded daily in the UK). It's a basic, essential principle of Western democracy. However his right to say it on somebody's website is qualified by whatever rules they wish to enforce. If I invite somebody into my house, whereupon they act or speak in a way that I find distasteful, I have every right to ask them to stop or to leave. Same principle on Joanna's fine forum here; where she and/or the mod team draw the line is their business.

I have also never heard of a TKT0 thread. However I have seen some TKT3 nylon, which is around 1mm. TKT numbers don't appear to align with # numbers very closely at all. For instance the manual for my Seiko LCW-8 suggests #8 thread with a Nm140 needle as 'standard' -- far too small for a TKT8 thread but just right for TKT20/V138, which is exactly what I would expect from an upholstery-weight machine like the CW series. (Curiously, Seiko suggests using Nm200 needles with #0 thread in the BL [thick thread] subclass, which usually corresponds with TKT10/V207 synthetic of 18/4 linen. That's very different to the Nm280 that Juki appears to suggest in their catalogue.) I agree that the best way to decode these #numbers is probably looking at the Nm needle size and working from there. I've had to do this in the past WRT Adler manuals from decades ago when they refer to thread sizes like 60/3. The # sizing system is evident in the Seiko as well as Juki catalogue but not DA or Pfaff, which would lend weight to the Japanese theory. Unfortunately I cannot readily find an English language reference to this sizing system.

Unfortunately no; TKT5 is equivalent to 18/8 linen or 556 nylon. By that scale a 0 would be like baler twine!

I concur with the suggestions for Le Prevo and Bakers of Colyton. I visited Bakers tannery recently, fantastic place. Top notch leather. Le Prevos website may be straight out of the 90s but they stock a lot of good leathers, tools and associated stuff at reasonable prices.

There are two CE marks. One indicates as you say. The other, which is almost identical apart from the spacing, is used arbitrarily by certain Chinese manufacturers whose products do not meet, let alone have been certified as meeting, the relevant EU regulations. Their motivation for doing so can only be conjectured but I have my suspicions. Pfaff is a respectable brand and I trust that their CE certification is genuine. Having now reminded myself the distinction between the genuine marks and the suspect ones I'll retract my previous comment; the CE mark on that machine sticker does not indicate that it's Chinese-made.

I believe that the CE mark indicates "China Export". Perhaps, as happens quite frequently these days, Pfaff designs the machines in Germany (where its headquarters are) but has them manufactured in China. That would explain how it's a German machine made in China. That's not to knock on Pfaff machines, they have a great reputation, though I've never used one.

I've found sunk stitches on the inside of harness tugs, not many places in a pair of tugs you can hide a seam! I think that English martingales traditionally have them too, but I've never handled one so couldn't say for certain. A similar technique is used on leather shoe soles, either with the seam in a groove or (probably better) the seam goes into a slit cut with teh tip of a knife, which is glued back together once the stitching is done.

I don't see much to be worried about. Oilly surfaces tend to accumulate dust and look terrible. However unless there's actual rusting going on all that stuff needs is a good wipe and everything's good underneath. Having said that, dirty machines sell slower and cheaper than clean ones, all other things being equal. There's some good machines in this sale, I hope they are picked up by people who will use them.

I agree with Geoff/Zuludog: my favourite stitch groover is 'none'. I really don't see a point to it in >90% of cases and it can cause an awful lot of problems.

So you're saying that these springs are traditionally made from mild steel? I'd have thought that hardened and tempered spring shim would be better long-term. I guess a holster spring is just there to increase the friction provided by the leather and doesn't spring more than a few millimetres so even mild could well stay within its elastic limit. Forming the spring into a curve will I suppose introduce some work hardening, which will increase the "springiness" a tad. For smallish production runs a CNC laser or waterjet cutter might be a fast and precise way to produce spring flats that need minimal cleanup. Plenty of small shops with them already who will be happy to hire out its use, which minimises startup costs.

Welcome to the forum, Bill. A few thoughts spring to mind. I'm going to be "one of those people", a sewing awl cannot be too sharp. It can, however be too pointy. The difficulty I had when beginning sharpening awls was to not consider that it's essentially a tiny dagger. It has two long cutting edges which are what you're sharpening, rather than the point. Make the point too fine and it'll simply snap off, leaving a hook burr right at the end. If you can't cut a good couple millimetres into your leather by running the edge of the awl blade down it your awl is too sharp, you leather is too hard, or both. Like you I'd sharpened tools for years, mostly by hand with oilstones, but sharpening awls is something completely different. The steel is just so tiny it's difficult to get an accurate view on what's going on, even with magnification. Nigel Armitage has a video on awl sharpening, I believe in it he spends two hours working a new John James awl into reasonable shape and even then he's not completely happy with it.. (John James awls come rough as a badger's bum though. I much prefer Osbornes.) If it worked, drilling worked. Yours or somebody else's life isn't likely to hang on the strength of your quiver's seams so don't lose any sleep over it. I would recommend a stitching chisel probably. I prefer pricking irons myself but chisels massively reduce the amount of work the awl has to do. You might want to ditch the groover though, it serves very little purpose in this, and most other, applications. This is a pretty common issue. What thread did you use, and did you wax it yourself? I presume you dyed the leather yourself? Linen is a little more susceptible to picking up dirt than synthetics. The old-timers used to mix up specific wax for white thread containing white powder (usually white lead, which is toxic). It's probably much easier for you to sew a long seam in several, shorter lengths of thread than one long one. A 3ft thread has to go through 3x as many holes as a 1ft thread so is 3x more likely to pick up dye. This also makes it less likely to drag along the ground and pick up dirt. I rarely stitch with a piece of thread longer than a fathom (from one hand to the other, with arms outstretched). Nigel Armitage demonstrates several different ways of saddle stitching in his videos. Sometimes he just pricks the stitch marks, sometimes he chisels them all the way through. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of tool and technique. Traditional English pricking irons are only intended to mark the surface with very shallow cuts, in order that the awl does most of the work. I like it as I think it gives the best aesthetic effect and is much faster to run an pricking iron down a strap than to have to wrestle with pulling the chisel out each time I hit it, and worry about if I'm hitting it perfectly square. However as I mention a stitching chisel massively reduces the work the awl has to do. I too started with the Stohlman book but remember that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and I don't think that Al had the range of experience and information we take for granted 40+ years after he wrote it.

I don't see why this new machine won't do that job you want @christophernejman, so long as you don't intend to use thread larger than V138 (207 might be alright in the needle, with 138 in the bobbin). The machine design is very capable of what you want, but as with many things the devil is in the detail. On this site we have several sewing machine dealers who sponsor us to keep the doors open and the data flowing. They have excellent reputations for customer service and product knowledge. Perhaps you might like to consider buying your machine from one of them.

Niche maybe, but he's found one and filled it, which his sales indicate. How you doing with that? If you arse is leaking enough to damage leather, you should visit a doctor. While you're there, make sure to mention that there's a fair bit of it coming out your keyboard too. What makes you think these are lacquered? There's a whole bunch of treatments that can produce shine or sheen, only one of which is lacquer. And now we return to our regular programming. @Mattsbagger, these look great. Do you know if your customers mostly use them for pens or for handtools? I'm frequently ripping the pockets of my work trousers with pliers and such, could save me a lot of darning.

Looks like a clone of the Seiko CW-8B, a popular machine. It's a cylinder-bed upholstery-weight triple-feed lockstitch sewing machine with a vertical axis (top-feeding) bobbin. What do you want to know/use it for?

Hi @Joelle, I've not used that particular machine but the lever to the right is the stitch length regulator. I was able to pull the following information off this page: http://www.industrialsewmachine.com/webdoc1/singer/16u.htm So no reverse feature, but looks like a handy machine for your purpose. If you want to lock the ends of your seams without having to turn the workpiece 180 degrees there is a technique commonly used in upholstery where you sew to the end of the seam, then resew the last 3 stitches of the seam. To do this you'll have to put the machine at top dead centre (when the takeup arm is at its highest point) and lift the presser foot. Pull the workpiece towards you so the needle is lined up 3 stitches back and drop the foot, then sew. It's not quite as neat as a triple-sewn backtack but works fine. (You can do this at the start of a seam too, but I'm sure you can figure out how!)

I believe it's a feature to detect broken or slipped belts -- a bit like when the machine jams -- obviously a firmware issue, and as such each model of motor is unique with regards to how much reduction it'll tolerate. I think most servos will tolerate a 2:1 reduction, as I currently have. Reports vary as to which models will tolerate a 3:1 or greater reduction with a synchro installed. Clearly some do, as they are supplied fitted to machines like the Cobra 441 clones. It's another characteristic that motor manufacturers don't publish that would be hugely useful to us leatherworkers, but I guess we're a tiny sector of the market, as usual. I'm leaning more and more towards building a MCU- or PLC-controlled stepper, like @Uwe made. I'd get total, full-power control from 0RPM and all the fancy features I want. Problems would be the time I spend on it and reliability. Component cost would be a about equal with one of the better entry-level servos.

I agree with @bikermutt07, it's some sort of pig. I'd lean towards a chrome split but it's difficult to tell from a picture and almost impossible to say for certain. Does it react to water in any significant way?

There's a lot of great suggestions in this thread and I'm not going to repeat any of them, but I think one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that leather, frustratingly, can move once it's cut. Consider that a cow is, roughly speaking, spherical (ask a physicist if you're in doubt!) and a hide of leather is flat. When the tanner flattens it out they use heat, pressure and moisture to achieve this effect, which is pretty successful. However the residual stresses from this, added to the grain patterns and directions from when it was a beast, can make some odd and frustrating things happen -- but only once the piece is liberated from the hide, and those stresses are no longer held in check. As a smith and woodworker I'm sure the idea will be familiar to you. These stresses and odd grain are most pronounced in the pieces of hide which have changed the most to become flat -- neck, leg, belly, chest etc. -- and I suspect are most pronounced on the smaller beasts like goat, sheep and deer, though I work mainly in cow so don't have enough empirical evidence to say that for certain. It's most obvious when cutting a straight strap off a side -- you can mark a line with an engineer's straightedge, cut it exactly, then tear out your hair at why the strap has a few millimetres' bow along its length. Other odd things can happen from grain. I have a bifold wallet I made earlier this year which doesn't fold straight but at an angle. I was trying to be clever and managed to squeeze the back from the neck of a side I had. The only way it would fit was at an angle. It was only once I'd finished the wallet I realised that that angle was the very same angle at which it naturally folds. Guess how clever I feel now! Sometimes, when a specific dimension is needed, I cut it from the hide oversized and then trim or sand to the exact size, or to match another component as needed. This, with careful selection of where I cut the pieces, usually eliminates the problem.

Another brilliant KISS solution from Brian! The bent tips of the needle pliers I get, but I'm curious to know what the little plastic discs are/are from? Do they stay attached to the tips of the pliers somehow? I also like that guide/fence you have -- much better than the narrow tipped ones you typically get. Is it boughten or Brian-made?

Thanks for taking the time to look, Dikman. I've tried the same a few times, on both Aliexpress and Alibaba, and often come up with a partial match at best. I suspect that end-user distributors can spec certain changes over a moderate minimum order size -- nothing too drastic like a different shaped casting, but a change of pushbutton layout or a tweak of some of the component specs wouldn't be difficult to do with today's CAD/CAM machines. That would go a long way to explaining why most distributors of any size seem to have different flavours of the same motors.