amuckart

I'm trying to find a way to cut a clean 5mm (~3/16th) hole through 12mm (~1/2") of leather, made up of 3 layers of 4mm veg bridle. I can't pre-punch the holes in each part beforehand, so I need something that'll go through all of the layers at once. A drill, even a very sharp one, doesn't leave a clean hole, and I haven't seen any sort of hole punch that isn't tapered on the outside and far too wide 12mm up from the cutting edge to made decent holes. Has anyone solved this problem already who can give me pointers? Thanks.

Thanks, I'll flick them an email.

The skiving knives sold by Lisa Sorrell who is an advertiser on this site are excellent. They come insanely sharp, hold a great edge and are easy to sharpen. They're US$78 for both sizes. http://sorrellnotionsandfindings.customboots.net/product/skiving-knife/

A lot of that sounds like the blade just isn't sharp enough. Splitter blades need to be really sharp to work well. If you wouldn't shave with it it's way too blunt. If you wouldn't let someone do surgery on you with it, it's too blunt.

Interesting about your holster plate being smooth. When did you get your machine? I was hesitant to grind the grooves off of the standard plate because they were very deep and I thought it would remove too much material. I just had another look and did it anyway. They're not 100% gone, but only slight traces remain. Before & afters: It's interesting how polishing shows up irregularites in the plate that were hidden by the satin finish. I wish they'd satin finish all the feet and plates, it is much less prone to corrosion in humid environments than a polished finish. Another thing worth mentioning, on my machine at least, I can install the holster plate without having to remove the feed dog. I can't do this with the stirrup plate.

Here's before & after pictures of my holster plate. I ran it down on a belt grinder, 120 & 200 grit to get the grooves followed by 80 micron trizact which gave an acceptable finish. I made sure to relieve all the edges and corners slightly on the trizact belt and did the inside of the slot by hand with 2000 grit. I don't understand why Cowboy stamp these grooves in either. Before: After:

Thanks Wiz. Do you know what the structural differences were between the 31 class machines billed as tailor's machines like the -15 and the ones designed for leather, other than the roller pressed feet? The 31-15 was definitely a tailor's machine originally, but it seems to be very popular was a machine for leather garments and cowboy boot tops. Thanks.

Yes. The heating system had a hot wax bath that sat under the shuttle race which the needle dipped into at the bottom of its stroke.The hot wax was similar to shoemaker's pitch, but I don't know the exact details of it. Similar wax is still used in some needle & awl machines for sewing soles onto shoes.

31-15s with intact treadle bases are somewhat uncommon. Most machines lost the treadle drive wheel when they were converted to motor driven. I have a treadle one that had been converted but still had its treadle wheel. I replaced the pitman rod with one from a 29k stand and removed the motor, which pretty much halved the weight of the whole thing. I haven't found anything that the 31-15 will sew that the treadle won't power through. Learning to treadle does take practice, especially with the industrial stands but it works well in my experience. I do end up handling the hand wheel a lot more than I would with a motor driven machine though.

It's not a wax pot, it's a water reservoir for the hot waxing system. There was a pipe that went from it though a hole in the machine to the water bath on the front when they were fitted with the hot waxing apparatus.

Partly I disassembled and reassembled it as a test, then dismantled it again and stripped the paint but never got to the point of reassembling it fully. A few years ago I came down with a chronic neurological condition that has taken most of the dexterity in my hands, along with my ability to move big lumps of cast iron about. After the machine had sat for too long I gritted my teeth and sold it. I regret that, of course, but at the time it seriously looked like I'd never be able to work on machines again. What I will say is that for all that it's big and looks like it has lots of moving parts the HM6 is a fairly simple machine. Everything is on the outside, so it's quite easy to work out what does what. They were built to last, and built to adjust into wear at the high wear points, so they come apart and go back together again fairly easily. I'd rate a No.6 as easier than a Singer 45k25. I had mine soda blasted to strip it and was planning have it powdercoated black. I did that with my 45k and I was very happy with the results. The thing I did wrong was to assume that the powdercoaters could mask it for me, but the machine is way too complex for that and they said they couldn't do it so would have to mask it myself and bring it back to them. If you're just going to re-paint with 2-pack spray paint or something masking is easy but masking for powdercoaters is hard. It took me so long to find the right silicone plugs for the screw holes etc. that the machine had started to pick up surface rust. If I'd had the masking gear ready and had taken it straight from the soda blaster, masked it and given it to the powdercoater, it would have been fine. If I were doing it again, I'd probably do the stand first, get that all ready, then strip the machine, repaint it, mount the main frame on the stand and reassemble it on there. As far as I could see all the screws in it are BSW and you can still get Whitworth tap and die sets, so if you need to manufacture any replacements it's a lot easier than with the strange proprietary screws in Singer machines. Another thing to mention explicitly is that you've got a complete bobbin winder there, including the top wax pot. Do not let that go! They are rare as hen's teeth and worth quite a lot. I'm curious about the pedal on the left hand side of the stand. I would like to see photos of that when it's assembled to see what it does.

Is the top tension being released properly when you raise the presser foot? What you describe does seem high, but if it stitches Ok and isn't unbalanced or burying into the work too far it should be Ok.

looks complete, and with a good range of feet too, good score.

Looking at those pictures, it's not going to be able to take a '25 needle plate and probably won't take '25 feed dogs either. The needle plate on a '25 is curved and the casting on your machine under the needle plate is flat. It's a very interesting machine, and it looks very complete, which is quite rare. If it were mine I would leave it as-is, use it to its strengths - it would probably be really good for sewing round the edges of case work - and get another cylinder arm machine. Failing that, you could probably sell it to a collector for enough to buy a GA5.

Thank you for sharing this, it's a big improvement on what we've had so far.

I don't need NPS, but it is nice. Not at the expense of basic functionality though. Thanks for that. I'll probably go for the 750W Jack one the next time I'm ordering something from them, which will be after I've got another job, but the machine is working for now. Treadles are so much easier!

Nope. Without the positioning unit plugged in the motor just spins at top speed as soon as it's powered on. I just put a dumb servo from another machine that isn't getting much use at the moment on the 441. It's only a 400W, but it seems to do the job and it's slow enough to control. It'll get me by until I get a better one.

My 441 clone has an old Ho-Hsing HVP-58 motor on it that I pulled off of another machine. It's got plenty of power, needle positioning, and what seemed like a useful range of adjustments to pickup speed etc. The problem with it is that its low speed setting is still 200spm, which is a bit too fast for me. "No problem!" thinks me, "I'll just put a smaller pulley on it". No such luck. I replaced the 100mm pulley with a 50mm pulley, got a new belt to go between the motor and speed reducer, and tried it out. It runs at exactly the same SPM. The problem is that it's too clever for me. It's not getting its rotational speed from the motor, it's getting it from the NPS unit on the shaft on the machine. In addition to the usual needle-up and down position sense wheels, it also has a speed sensor wheel so the net effect of putting the smaller pulley on is that the machine runs at exactly the same speed but the motor is whirring away much faster. *sigh*. Time to save up for a dumber motor.

Hi Yzabel, There are three pedals, two that make the machine go, and one that connects to the foot lifter. That's the horizontal bar that runs right across the top of the machine. If you press down on the right hand end of it the foot lifts up. The right hand end has a hole in it, that's where the foot lifter chain or link hooks on to. It goes down through a hole in the stand and connects to the pedal. Here's the current state of a freshly typeset HM6 manual I have been working on. It is free for personal use, but not for re-publication anywhere. This is based on a number of different manuals for the HM6 I have copies of. BUSM HM6 Manual.pdf

I have huge machine envy right now! I really want to get hold of an original treadle stand for my 45k. Can you share more detailed photos of the feet and feed dogs on the machine at the moment? Thanks.

I think that particular one was Ferdco, but similar attachments have been around for a long time. Singer made a special version of the 45k for this job. There was one on Ebay in the UK some time ago for several thousand pounds. From what I read on ISMACS (I think) they were famously difficult things to use. Here are pics from the ebay auction

I don't, sorry. I've only ever seen one and it was too far away for me to realistically get hold of. I'm glad you're getting ahead with timing your machine. Have fun.

Yes, the Indian ones. The ones this guy was dealing with were new, not ones people had brought in with problems. All I'm saying is that it might look like a 15k, but it isn't built with anything like the quality of the original. Sure, so long as people understand the limitations of domestic sewing machines, which IME not a lot of people do. They hear about the 15-91 or 201 or whatever being these amazing heavy duty machines and think they will do things they were never designed for. Better, IMO, to start with an true industrial straight stitch like the 31-15, Pfaff 35-4, or Singer 331k which are mechanically simple, easy to get parts for, take high shank feet and which will actually sew light leather and canvas jobs, often without costing more than $100-$150 more than people are asking for the domestic machines. Don't get me wrong, I love my 201. It works beautifully and it'll sew things that will choke modern domestic machines, but it was never designed for leather, and the limitations of low shank feet are just not worth it for anything other than occasional work with garment-weight stuff.

That's similar to what I ended up doing with my 441 clone. I needed to fit it into a smaller space than the original table would allow so after cutting the original table in two and seeing the awful junk it was made of (pressure bonded scraps of ply with huge voids in it) I chucked it and used laminated MDF from an office desk. Here's the cut edge of the original table showing the junk it's made of: Here's what I originally did with the half width table: That was a good size but I couldn't fit the Ho-Hsing motor on it so when I added that motor I replaced the table top with the formica covered MDF one. It's only an inch thick but it's plenty solid. I wouldn't use it for a flatbed top, it's way too thin, but with the 441 head sitting exactly over the post on the stand it's fine. The only movement in the whole system is the motor moving slightly on the rubber mounting grommets. I also did things like add a holder for the oilcan. Eventually I'll add space to hang the various screwdrivers and hex keys needed to change the feet and make basic adjustments. I put much bigger soft casters on the base. The ones that came with it were tiny and useless for carpet. Unfortunately they were plate mount not post mount so there are some ugly nuts on the top of the base, but I can live with that. I moved the foot pedals as well so that there's more separation between the foot lift pedal and the 'go' pedal. The next plan is to make a better flat top for it. The ones that come with 441 clones are completely stupid in the way they attach to the table.

The feet are the easy part, it's the hands that need all the skill. I'm amazed she's doing it on one of those machines though. That's one of the new Indian (I think) "Singer" machines. You can tell because of the garish decals, the modern polyurethaned case, and the fact that the decals on the bed haven't worn off yet. I was talking to a repair man a while ago who's seen quite a few of these come through his shop and he's never managed to get one to sew without basically tearing it apart and completely rebuilding it, which just isn't worth the effort.