Matt S

Well there's an idea. Wonder how many Landis 16s they'll let me take as handluggage?

I sent Gregg an email about the SP-1100, it sounds like a real winner. I don't strictly need a solenoid output yet but it opens some possibilities for the future. Better to have it and not need it, as they say. I agree completely, a synchroniser/positioner is a hugely useful thing so long as it's reliable/repeatable. Takes a big chunk of donkey work out of machine sewing. As you say some servos will tolerate a speed reducer, whereas others won't. Difficult to guess which will though -- manufacturers rarely even give proper motor specs like torque, let alone things like minimum speed and what reductions they'll tolerate. I guess that's what we suffer though, considering what a tiny %age of a limited market we represent.

If that works for you in your application, great. I've used machines fitted with a speed reducer before and they can work fine. However I use the synchro to stop the machine needle down, which massively helps me in making backtacks and corners -- I hardly need to touch the handwheel. It might sound silly but even at a second per handwheel operation there's enormous time savings to be made by using a well-featured motor. The main purpose for this machine is to sew 1-3 (usually 2) layers of 2mm waxed chrome leather with TKT20/V138 thread with ~3mm stitches. On a standard 4ft dog lead that's about 10ft of sewing so I like/want/need to have a fast speed available -- so long as the quality stays just as good more speed is more profit, or a lower price for my customers. I sew at the minimum speed when I'm doing the fiddly bits, which with the best motor I currently have is 500RPM/250SPM (40mm motor pulley, 80mm handwheel). Hence why I'm shopping for a replacement and have a fairly specific set of requirements.

Not advice but I'd be very pleased if you took some photos and shared them with us here -- so long as the owner is happy for you to do so of course. I love old machinery and workshops and, while it's a shame that the company is closed, maybe those machines can be put to new work if they get new owners. Bit too long a drive from London to LA otherwise I'd be there like a rat up a drainpipe. Pictures and a quick write-up (subject to Mod approval) will help the equipment sale reach a wider audience and hopefully enough buyers who appreciate the vintage gear. Far too many good old machines get weighed-in.

I haven't tried this particular setup no but the issue is the overall number of turns the motor has to make before the synchro registers a rotation. More than 3 or so and many motors (including a couple I have) stop with an error code. I don't think it matters how this ratio is reached whether it's a 40mm pulley motor direct to a 240mm machine pulley or if there's a 3:1 reducer betwixt the two. Some motors tolerate it, most don't.

Oooo we have a contender! Have you used this motor? Do you know what size shaft it has -- perhaps I could swap a 40mm pulley onto it? That'd give me a lowest speed of 50SPM, which is less than one per second -- ideal!

Unfortunately I can't do that as it confuses the synchro. I've already got a 40mm wheel on the motor which gives me a 2:1 reduction to the machine. That looks just the sort of thing I'm after but it's 110volt only! Solenoid output would be very handy.

I've got a few different servo motors from the cheaper end of what's commonly available. However, as impressive as most of them may be, and as perfectly fine for garment machines as I'm sure they are, they all seem to be lacking something or several things, for my purposes. Mostly these are a limited pedal speed range and/or an excessive starting speed. I understand that these are pretty much par for the course with cheap servo motors. I've gone down the speed reducing pulley route before and the results are impressive. However I want to be able to use a needle positioner/synchroniser and would prefer to not have the bulk under the table. It doesn't help that I am in the UK so a lot of options are simply not options (we use 230ish volts @ 50Hz mains). The Ho Hsing G60 servo has been recommended by several posters on here as having good low-speed performance. At £200ish including tax and shipping it's nearly double what the cheapest servos cost and the synchoniser is extra so I'm a little hesitant about pressing the trigger until I'm fairly convinced it's the right option. Specifically I'm looking to power my Seiko LCW-8 (very similar to the Consew 226) and want to be able to run it from under 100SPM to over 1000SPM without adjusting any settings (a wide pedal range with lots of discrete steps along the slope). (Another thing other than price I'm not too keen on with the G60 is that it's a 2-button interface. I find them tricky to navigate, and would it really kill the manufacturers to put on a speed knob and a few toggle switches for commonly changed settings? I'd love a nice robust 3-way toggle for the synchroniser, and maybe a "safety" that disables the motor for making adjustments around the needle without fear of putting a Schmetz #160 through my finger without having to turn the power off? But I digress...) Am I asking too much for a bottom-end servo motor? Is there a better option, hopefully for fewer beer tokens? I really don't think I could stretch to an Efka... Should I just give in and build my own PLC-controlled direct-drive stepper setup?

Some shots of drying hides. There's a lot of drying rooms.

Definitely not the first on this board to visit, and probably not the first to post about it, but today I visited the semi-legendary tannery J & FJ Baker's of Colyton, Devon. For the uninitiated they are the last oak-bark pit tannery in England, and possibly Europe. This isn't some rediscovered or retro skill -- the company has been operating essentially unchanged since there was a tan yard in every village. Apologies in advance for the limited and low quality photos. I'm not much of a photographer, I only had my phone with me and we were on a time-scale so I didn't fancy looking like a complete tourist and only took a few snaps as we went round trying really hard not to fall into the liming tank. Baker's has been owned and run by the same family for about 140 years. Today's company director is the 5th Mr Parr. However nobody knows how long the tannery has been here. (There was a tan-yard on this site in Roman times. That's nearly 2000 years, history fans.) The tannery operates in a maze of buildings on the banks of the River Coly, from which it draws water and motive power. (The hides are are agitated in the tan pits by the water wheel which runs in a leat off the river.) These range everything from ancient stone and brick to wriggly tin sheds you might find on a dairy farm. The site has clearly been built and evolved over time, as needs changed to meet a fickle market. One thing that is constant is the impression of age -- a combination of wear from centuries of honest, hard graft and grease which covers every surface. This is what "vintage" dealers aim at and completely miss. Nothing around this site looks old because it's had orange paint daubed on it, been hit with a hammer or rubbed with wire wool -- it's simply been doing its job since it was new. If you've spent time at an industrial site you'll probably know what I'm talking about. Hides arrive as "wet blues" from the slaughterhouse-- just as the got sliced off the cow, except they're covered in salt so they don't rot before they get tanned. They're still hairy and bloody, but that won't last long. First they go into the liming pits. This is an alkali bath which dissolves the fat and little scraps of flesh, loosens the hair, and plumps up the skin. The limed hides go through a couple of machines which dehair and deflesh them, then they're passed to a man who removes any stubborn bits that shouldn't be there. He uses a large knife in a scraping motion. Before machines came about all flesh and hair was removed on the fleshing beam in this way, which was tedious. At this stage it's all still rawhide. After dehairing the leather goes to the tanyard, which is the heart of the operation. Hides are hung in the pits by hand, strung from the oak beams you can see. the beams each hold two hides and fit into wooden frames, which are rocked back and forth by the vertical rods you can see, which in turn are moved by the water wheel. Hides start out in the oldest tanliquor, which is changed by pump each week for a stronger liquor until it's been through the strongest, newest liquor. Talking of tanliquor, Baker's primarily uses oak bark. They have used standard bought-in veg-tannin in the past, and still sometimes do, but these days mostly run oak bark because that's what Baker's is famous for. It's prepared separately in a series of pits underneath the tanyard, with shredded bark left to steep in water for "a while". It's encouraged to ferment before it's ready to be pumped up to the tanyard and the smell is... well let's just say it doesn't smell like a forest. Once the liquor is drained the remaining mulch is sold on as fertiliser. Tanning takes many months and exactly how long I don't know. However the average is 18 months from coming in to being ready for sale. It's this tanning which turns rawhide into leather. Freshly tanned hides are hung to dry in naturally moving air. Once dried, hides are dipped in hot grease and folded in half before they go hard. Later they are put through a hot water bath, laid flat, graded and cut. At this stage their fate is decided -- will it become shoe leather or equestrian leather? Shoulders, backs or butts? Grading is a skilled job but mostly revolves around how many flaws it has -- barbed wire scars matter a whole lot less on a shoe sole than a pair of driving reins. Hides are split to final thickness at this stage. Soling then goes to the butt store but equestrian leather goes on to be curried (dyed, dressed and treated). Most dying is done in a tumble drum these days for speed and uniformity but they still hand-colour some hides. Hides are set out on a stone slab, using a slicker to smooth, even-out and slightly polish the leather. Currying involves the rubbing in of dubbin by hand, which is a mixture of tallow, oil and wax. I didn't get any pictures of the dubbin tank but I think you could submerge an estate car inside it without too much trouble. I've alluded to shoe and equestrian leather and those are the traditional divisions but leathers from these groups is suitable for all sorts of purposes. Baker's sells shoe soling as well as specific cut components like sole blanks, toe puffs, heel stiffeners etc. It can be cut into regular shapes for a beautiful (but rather delicate) flooring material. Soling is also hot fatliquored in a tumble drum to make machinery belting. Equestrian leather is of course traditionally used for riding and driving tack but its use is largely for other goods like belts and bags. Traditional products are bridle and harness in various shades of brown, tan and black. (Some undyed stuff is made, which in England is called russet. That's the sort of thing you might use for tooling.) There's also a certain quantity of lighter weight hides like bag/girth hide, which has an obvious use. Other specialist leathers for making stirrup leathers and girth points on English saddles are available too. Traditional cuts are backs, shoulder, butts and bellies. Backs and butts are sold as pairs or half-pairs (singles). There's also a limited quantity of Russian calf coming out the tannery these days which is amazing stuff. Baker's has been through some rough patches in the past but the quality and beauty of their product is well recognised these days. They're running at full capacity, which is 80 hides per week. It's not the cheapest leather in the world but neither is it the most expensive and I think it's a bargain for what it is. Now I just have to convince my customers the same ;-) You can see some good quality shots of Baker's main products here.

Well that makes sense. Looks like a handy thing and well made.

I have to admit I opened this thread to see how you were planning to conceal a bullpup... Something about the idea of CCing a Steyr AUG just tickled me... Neat job. Is it for a southpaw?

I don't think it's a very high priority for them. They seem to be doing fine selling to their customers who walk in or order by phone or email. There's a limit to what they can process per week and having seen the amount of parcels they send out per day I'm not surprised if they've about reached it. Welcome to the forum, Solidcell. If you're anywhere near Dalston during trade hours I would strongly recommend you visit, it's a great resource.

In my experience speed, combined with pressure, is a crucial element, even when hand burnishing. Getting the right combination of surface speed, pressure, dwell time and moisture for that particular piece of leather is the key. There are round bottomed edgers available and they make burnishing an edge a little easier, especially when you get above say 6mm thickness. However they can be tricky to sharpen compared with the normal flat bottomed type and having flat facets before I start burnishing isn't that much of a problem -- the burnishing compound (water/soap/gum/etc.) combined with the pressure from the burnishing tool, forces the edge round anyway. I've never got on with Dixon style hollow edgers though Ivan bisonette edgers aren't bad once you get them well stropped.

I believe @Singermania is manufacturing small quantities of these devices. Kinda tempted myself...

Prices may be tempting but like a lot of these drop shipping companies you're buying a pig in a poke -- buy a CB4500 for instance and what arrives via Fed Ex may well be a 441 clone with a 16" arm but it won't be the same as getting one from a reputable distributor. There's a lot of finesse that goes into setting up an industrial sewing machine for use on leather and frankly I don't trust any of the drop shippers to do it. You can do it yourself if you have the mechanical aptitude and spend time learning what needs doing (I think @amuckart went down this route) or you can pay a professional to do it. My guy charges nearly £100/hr so any savings would get eaten up very quickly, especially if any parts need changing. (Neither of those machines are suitable for your purpose. Most popular are clones of the Juki TSC-441 and Adler 205, though there are several others. Cheapest would be something like a GA5, a clone of the Adler 5 which itself was "heavilly inspired" by the Singer 45K. Each machine has its advantages and drawbacks.)

Mostly high-speed fabric-sewing machines. Certainly not clean or new but if someone wanted to set up for garment manufacturing on the cheap this might be a good start. That Adler is equivalent to a Singer 17 or Seiko TE. Very reliable little machines for lighter work in leather. Looks like this one may be in need of a needle plate, hard to tell.

AIUI moly grease is molybdenum disulphide suspended in lithium grease so that should be fine -- 10x better than what was avilable in 18-ninety-whatever when these machines were designed! Purpose-made SM oil is nice and light (makes great honing oil!) and non-detergent so works well in most modernish sewing machines -- especially those with automatic oiling mechanisms. However its thinness, in my non-scientific and humble opinion, is a little too thin to be the best in the old, heavy machines. It'll certainly work but I wonder about its sticktivity in, say, the needle box galleries of a #6. The manual specifies No.3 IVI oil but as to what that is exactly I couldn't say. I think, honestly, just about anything non-drying and not too thick will work in a #6.

College Sewing in the UK lists several different sizes and styles of 126x11 needles in stock. Price is pretty reasonable so I suspect it may be a NOS item. You could grab a bunch and even if their supply is not sustainable you'll give yourself (a) a reference for what the correct needle is like and (b) time to find a longer-term source of a suitable substitute needle. A 111 that can sew 1/2" sounds bloody useful!

Well she just read this over my shoulder so it looks like I'm going to have to! I agree, with one slight modification: oil goes on parts that are entirely or partly in contact with its mate most of the time, and parts that are intermittently in contact receive grease. The way I figure it those cams on the back of the #6's wheel won't hold oil except where the roller bearings happen to be at that moment -- needs something thicker to reduce the rate at which it drips out. I use bog standard lithium grease but just about anything ought to work. However where there's frequent or constant contact the oil will (mostly) be held in by surface tension. At least in my little mind.

Well she's obviously got some miles on her but looks intact. The only obvious part you might be missing is that wax pot, but that's not the end of the world. The handle looks like an improvised replacement but functional. If you've read the manual you'll realise there's not a great deal to adjust or time on a #6 -- most of it is fixed and what adjustments exist are primarily for compensating for wear over time. Apart from the obvious ones like shuttle tension and needle thread take-up (which does not work on the same principle as the common 111-type tension unit -- took me a while to get my little brain around that) off the top of my head there is only the needle assist slide, the gibs on the needle bar assembly and the tuning stud for the stitch length dial. (These may not be exactly what the manual calls em.) I found mine was a little sluggish and reluctant for the needle bar assembly to snap back towards me after completing each stitch, which meant that the stitch length didn't always tie up with the dial setting. I found that the slides were full of very old oil, which was making it drag. A couple hours' relaxing with a set of spanners, the girlfriend's toothbrush and a can of brake cleaner sorted out that problem. There's a knack to adjusting the gibs tight enough for minimal slop but loose enough to cycle without binding. As always with this sort of thing though my recommendation would be "if it ain't broke don't fix it". (Shame I rarely follow my own advice...) Beautiful as this piece of late Victorian engineering is, try to resist putting it anywhere the floor may be harmed by oil. Like all British engineering these things are thirsty brutes and have two modes: (1) If it's not leaking oil it's run dry so you'd better top up. (2) if it's leaking oil it has sufficient for now but it's about to run out so you better top up.

We had a short discussion on these sorts of press here: Click me Upshot is that such things might be useful for certain small and/or repetative jobs. However they are very limited on their punching power and have a narrow daylight space. I would dearly love a swing-arm press because it would massively reduce the time it takes per cut, and placing cuts around flaws would be much easier. I don't have the space or power required for a "real" clicker press, and the Weaver pneumatic ones are expensive and have a fixed head. There's a few options on smallish manual ones: Weaver, Lucris, and Cowboy and they all look like excellent machines. As far as I can tell they all work on the same principle, which is a long-arm toggle press that can deliver around 4-5 tons pressure and have a moving presser head around 12" square. Unfortunately they all cost 4 figures and I just don't have the budget for that at the moment. Instead I went down the popular route of an inexpensive bearing press, which is a machine that car mechanics use. It's a heavy steel frame with a bottle jack attached. I bought a 6-ton model as I had limited space available and my research indicated that the ram will move quicker the smaller the pressing capacity. I was able to buy the press, some steel plates, a heavy cutting board, and build a stand out of 2x4s for under £100 total. This machine has two major limitations: it can't handle leather any wider than 13" and it requires usually 4 strokes of the handle to make a cut, and a separate control to release/raise the presser. It also requires the presser plate to be loose, rather than fixed to the ram, so I lose a little speed here too. However the price was excellent and being entirely manual I can feel the exact moment the knife passes through the leather, which limits the wear on the knife and the board. I also have a fly press, which is a machine commonly used in metalworking. It uses a weighted arm which spins a very large screw, which provides a surprisingly powerful "bounce" with a single stroke of the arm. This makes it fast to operate, and the open C-frame will give a lot more flexibility regarding the leather pieces I can put through it (no need to cut into strips first). Unfortunately I've not yet had the chance to set this machine up and run it through its paces.

Heavier stuff I rarely tap as I find it tends to sit neater than lighter work, and I like the feel of the stitches slightly proud. Lighter stuff I will tap if it's a little uneven, or to encourage the thread to fill the awl holes better if they're looking a little empty. Perhaps you are looking for something that makes a particularly narrow channel but have you looked at a V- or U-gouge, or perhaps even a race? These are designed for exactly this purpose and often have a flat facet which can be run along a straight edge. They have a blade that's less likely to jam up when taking a heavy cut than a stitch groover, though in all honesty the only true stitch groover I've used is an Ivan, which is certainly not the best quality.

Singer Kilbowie closed in 1980. I believe that's when the U classes came about, Seiko machines rebadged as Singer. BUSM continued until 2000, though I don't think they were making any sewing machines by that stage. I doubt even a 25% tariff on Chinese machines is going to have any effect other than putting up the retail price by a similar amount. Premium machines are two or more times the price of a Chinese copy of the same model. Compare the price of a CB4500 against that of a Juki TSC-441 -- even after a 25% price rise there's going to be a lot of small custom shops and hobbyists going for the clone. It's still a fraction of the price of a "real" one. I'd have to check with someone like @gottaknow but I don't think many American factories make much use of Chinese made machines -- the longevity and reliability just aren't good enough working full-speed 2,000+ man-hours per year. So perhaps these tariffs might tip a few potential purchasers closer towards a premium machine rather than a Chinese one, or perhaps to rebuilt vintage/classic/used machines. However these are still going to be the small custom makers and hobbyists that buy maybe a machine every few years, rather than volume production factories, which will buy a dozen or more machines at a go. There's not going to be a lot of sewing machine factories get built in the US any time soon. Sadly.

Evenin, GG. Perhaps not a popular opinion or one you're seeking, but I really don't like stitch groovers or the effect they achieve on the seam, except in the very few circumstances where their effect is necessary. Leaving the stitches semi-proud of the surface is perfectly fine in 90+% of circumstances, and I think gives a more impressive tactile and visual effect than burying them. I'm sure both of these groovers are excellent quality but I can think of some far better uses of the $$$ Just my two cents as they say. No offence intended, I'm sure you know what you're doing and the effect you want to achieve. Certainly not trying to tell you how to spend your beer tokens, just offering a slightly different perspective.