amuckart

When I saw this I thought about how I'd do it, and figured as I'd pull the patcher off the stand, install a plate between the patcher and the stand sticking out the back and bolt the motor to that. From there you could rig an extension from the pittman of the stand's existing pedal to the motor control, and it's all totally reversible if you ever want to take the motor off again. You'd need to be a bit careful about the size of motor you chose though, a full-size industrial job might be too heavy, but from the looks of the ones Wiz posted pics of you don't need a big motor to drive a patcher.

I use a glass shelf from the bathroom section of the hardware store.

Can someone explain to the Americanly-challenged what a "BBQ Rig" is? I'm assuming it's another term for an off-duty rig?

If you remove the two screws from the needle clamp completely, the front plate comes off. My plan was to make a part that replaced that front plate and was held on by the original screws so it didn't require any permanent modification of the machine at all.

I toyed with the idea of having a new needle bar made to fit 794 system needles, but it's not a cheap bit of machining for me to get done and there are issues with the stroke length that mean you wouldn't be able to sew really thick stuff. I plan on making a small adapter that bolts on where the needle clamp is and has a small projecting tube to take 794 needles, just to see how it works.

http://www.stapleheadquarters.com/neva-clog-staples.html Might help

Thank you for the pictures of the back. Is the waxing apparatus electrically heated? Interesting modification to the needle, what did you do to it?

It does, thank you.

Purely out of curiosity - since I don't and probably never will carry a sidearm - can you tell me what the rationale was for placing the "X" up at the base of the neck rather than down between the shoulder blades? Thanks.

If there are two brushes, and you swap the brush casings (and therefore the wiring, and polarity relative to the field coils) then the motor will run backwards.

What thickness of leather are you using? If you've got reasonably stiff thick leather for the base just cut circles out and sew them in flesh-edge through the base

That really is an incredibly good find for EU100, especially with that waxing apparatus! Do you have any photos of the back side of the machine?

Inkscape is the Right Tool for design work like this. It's free, multi-platform, saves its output in an open standard format (that you'll still be able to open in 10 years), and works. It has a bit of a learning curve, but the help is pretty good and there are books on it. For symmetrical stuff, explore the clone tool.

For wallets and shoes, I'd get a roller-foot post-bed machine. You can't do shoes on a cylinder bed machine.

I've never used one, but it looks to be similar to the STH-8, which I have but is a vertical-axis hook machine that takes a smaller bobbin. I take it you're looking at the one on TradeMe? I got my STH-8BL for NZ$350 in pretty good mechanical nick, but set up for upholstery. I got it to do tent repairs, for leather it'll need a servo motor and a different needle plate. Wiz has a similar machine set up with no feed dog and a slotted needle plate for leather. There's a $1 reserve Pfaff on there at the moment, currently at $30 that'll probably end up going cheap but it needs some work by the looks of things. I plan on getting a set of feet and a roller guide for it and getting a slotted needle plate laser cut. The thing that might get you about the STW-8 is that it's max stitch length is 5.5mm and it takes small bobbins. For leather, I'd hold out for the STH-8 or a Consew 206. There seems to have been a fairly steady flow of this class of machine on TM for the last little while. I see one guy with a couple of new in-the-box STH-8BLD3 machines for NZ$1400.

That looks knife cut to me. If you look really closely at the left side of the slot it looks like the cut goes a little too far. The key I've found cutting slots like that is to always cut away from the body of the leather, so for a given rectangle there will be eight cuts. I do it with a very sharp and sharply pointed Olfa AK-1 craft knife using a KB4-S/B blade going in almost vertically at the corners. I use the Olfa knife because the blades are a good contour and much higher quality than most x-acto / craft knife blades, and I got given them

Hi Charlie, If your trumpet is worth that much, I think you'd be getting the bad end of the deal trading it for a 31-15. They can be had for far far less than that.

Rees also has things to say on the topic: http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/histshoe/Rees/rees3.htm

Hi Art, Thanks for the later references, I tend to focus so much on pre-1600 stuff that's what I default to when I hear "historical reenactment". NZ doesn't have a big CW reenactment scene Do you have a copy, and if so can you quote it here? Thanks.

I second that recommendation. That's where I got started. I've been reading and participating in it for a few years now and it's still the best compendium of information out there. Do you have references for white code, or ingredients pre-18th Century? I've looked into this quite a bit, as have people like Marc Carlson, and to my knowledge there is just no surviving evidence for the content of medieval shoemaking waxes. If you know of some I'd be really interested in seeing it, especially if you can document the use of asphaltum in them! I'm familiar with the CW-era and 18th century recipes, including the ones for masheen/white wax, but extrapolating backwards to medieval/renaissance techniques from the 18th century doesn't work. I don't get the link between Sellari's wax and the content of medieval code, am I missing something? The trick with adding things like tallow is to add them in tiny quantities. I take single shavings off of a cake of tallow and add one, pour, pull, set and test then re-melt if required. With reference to the recipes of Al's you quote, be aware that Rausch Naval Yards burned down and you can't get pitch from there any more. Colonial Williamsburg ended up importing some from China at vast cost since you apparently can't even get it from Sweden any more, which is a pretty sad state of affairs.

The first thing that popped into my mind was 'what's the trumpet worth if you sold it'? If you're willing to part with it to get a sewing machine then that pretty much sets your budget. It's easy to underestimate how much machine consumables can cost too, so keep that in mind.

How legit is it? It isn't. People do it, for a variety of reasons, but -- and I say this with the greatest of affection for the Society -- people do, and wear, an awful lot of dumb un-documentable crap in the SCA I've never seen any documentary or pictorial evidence that anyone in the middle ages who was of a position to wear a crown wore anything other than the biggest, most gem-studded hunk of precious metal they could get their hands on, let alone a strip of leather, so Jarl Sigmund is probably the closest you'll ever get to a 'historical' figure wearing one. Assuming you haven't made it already and are trying to document after the fact, and need something to enter, why not hand sew a coif or something? I've never been to the East, but if I were judging an A&S competition I'd give a basic hand-sewn coif with good documentation a lot more points than a beautifully made but impossible to document leather 'coronet'. Just my 2c from over in Lochac. William de Wyke Per pale sable and argent a bend cotised counterchanged

Looks like it's missing all the walking foot bits off the back.

Save your money and buy a Consew 206 or a Seiko STH-8BL. If you've got space for a Landis 1, surely you can fit a proper industrial machine in?

Hi Brendan, No, I don't have any pre 18th century sources for the making of code at all. The Lystine Lordys Verament, as quoted on my site, tells us they had it in medieval times, but nothing about what it was made of or how. As far as I am aware, no such detail from any extant source has come to light. It's probable that it was pitch-based and unlikely that it contained beeswax. I'm working up a mix using pitch, rosin, and a tiny amount of tallow but it's pretty variable so down to experimentation with the materials you have on hand. Pitch is the key though, proper black pitch, not the rosin places like Jas Townsend sell as 'pitch'. Are you on the medieval shoemaking yahoo group? If you make medieval shoes, I'd suggest joining. There's a chap on there who bought a bulk load of bristles and is on selling them in manageable quantities. PM me your email address if you're not on the yahoo group and I'll send it on to him.