amuckart

Hi Art, Do you have a dog on your slot plate?

The patent expires at the end of 2015, and searching for it has told me what I wanted to know about how it works. Cheryl, who is excellently responsive, said they are negotiating with an unspecified manufacturer to take over production of the needle guides. Thank you for those, much appreciated. Pictures of the part I'm thinking of would mean taking the needle plate off, so don't worry about it, I finally found the patent documents which have pictures. Cheers.

I'm curious about how the lower needle guide on Ferdco machines works. Can anyone post a picture of it? Thanks.

Of those, I like the look of #2 best, but search the forums for 'kwokhing' and have a look at the neat drop-down guides.

I'm not sure where those are, or who dated them, but I have to say as a 15th century reenactor; if those are 15th century chairs I'll eat my hat That style of chair is an 18th century thing at the earliest, and I wouldn't be surprised if those were actually Victorian chairs that haven't aged terribly well. The last one might be late 16th century, but the aesthetic still looks wrong, and if it is I'd say the upholstery has been redone. If you want to see some pictures of medieval and renaissance chairs have a look here Larsdatter's chair page. Unfortunately leather wasn't a big feature of upholstery until the modern period.

What sort of light plastic do you use? Thanks for sharing this technique.

My guess would be that they're starting with a bit of animal that isn't flat. Those could well be - and I'm not kidding - bull scrotums or something similar.

Thank you all. Bob: It's a good machine, but it's been a hell of a learning curve for me getting it sewing right. When it arrived the hook timing was completely off and it would break the thread because the hook would be too far reversed when the takeup lever tried to pull the loop up. I'd have been completely stuffed without the 441 engineer's manual but I went through that adjustment by adjustment and eventually worked out most of how everything is interacting in terms of feed, foot lift, and needle / hook timing. It sews well now with the feed dog, and I think tonight's adjustments will get it working a lot better with the slotted plates. The only thing it's doing now is making a strange twanging clunk in the top thread as the takeup lever pulls the thread loop off the shuttle, which I'm assuming isn't normal.

Thank you Wiz, much appreciated. I think I'm close to getting my 441 clone timed and beaten into submission (it was winning for quite a while there). Do you know why it is that the reverse feed is inconsistent without the feed dogs? The other thing I've noticed with the slotted plate is that the stitch length is reduced compared to using the feed dog. Thanks.

Can anyone tell me what adjustments I should make to a 441 clone to use thicker needle plates like the stirrup and holster plates? I've backed off the presser foot tension a bunch, but I'm not sure if there's anything else I should do. Thanks.

The 2:1 recipe I use is for shoemaking where the threads aren't usually visible. The threads don't stay pristine white, because the wax isn't white, but nor do they end up dirty in the course of normal sewing. With the ratios I use the pulling definitely makes a difference. If you want white wax these days without the lead poisoning, use aluminium oxide pigment.

Rosin crystals aren't a problem, they will dissolve again as you taffy-pull the code. I've found that the mix of ingredients is far more important than the temperature of the water. That's the only way to do it. Measure your ingredients by dry weight, and record your results in writing. Don't forget to write down where you go the ingredients because each batch of beeswax and rosin is different. If your code comes out too sticky, remelt it and add more rosin. If too hard, remelt and add a tiny bit of tallow. I shave off slivers with a knife, add one, re-pour and taffy-pull, repeat as necessary.

What I'd do is clamp a bit of wood out the back of the stand with C-clamps thread holder on there. If you were feeling particularly cunning you could probably work a way to attach it with the same screws that hold the machine head onto the stand.

Hi Wiz, it sounds like you're thinking of a different type of machine. Theres no oil pan as such on this machine, and the pump is electric not mechanically driven by the motion of the machine. The Pfaff 441 is a machine specifically designed for sewing shoe amd garment weight leather.

Thanks for that. Unfortunately that, along with all the other links that show up on a google search for the model number, is just the parts list, not a user manual. There's a service manual for a slightly different variant but it doesnt answer the things I'm still trying to work out.

Try colder water next time. What are you using for your ingredients?

I'm with Paul. Practice your hand sewing, concentrate on consistency and making sure the awl angle is the same every time and that the threads pass each other in the same relationship every stitch. By the time you've sewn a few metres concentrating on these things it'll get better. Trust me. My hand sewing was apalling when I started and is pretty reasonable even now when I'm out of practice. This is an art and it takes practice to get good and more practice to stay good.

Hi all, I've just acquired a Pfaff 441-R 755 driven roller foot/roller feed flatbed machine out of a shoe factory. It's got a needle positioning servo and is quite a step up from my old 34-5, though that still sews just fine. I've figured out most things, how to change stitch length, how to thread the bobbins etc and most of where I would need to hook up a driver for the thread trimming knife if I ever want that to work again/can figure out how to hook it to the control box on the motor. What I can't figure out for the life of me is where the oil goes! It's got a sump and a little oil gauge on the front, but I can't see where to put oil in. Also the thing I'm assuming is the oil pump isn't electrically connected, and the connector on the end of the wire is different to the available connectors on the Ho-Hsing servo motor it's equipped with. There are parts manuals for this machine all over the Internet, but nothing in the way of an operators or service manual. Can anyone help me out? Thanks.

That machine is a roller foot cylinder bed machine for sewing footwear. It is a clone of the Singer 17 class machine, there is also a version with reverse made by Seiko It has a roller foot and drop feed, it isn't a walking foot. The type is good for light leather of garment and shoe weight, but I don't know anything about the specific brands you've been looking at though.

Yup, that's a 331 system needle, same as is used in the Pearson No.6. They're scary big. There's enough groove for them to go through 25mm of leather and still throw a loop - and they used to come in sizes down to 160 which is awful thin for something that long!

Sharp is relative. It depends on what you're cutting and what you're cutting it with. Buy Leonard Lee's Book of Sharpening It'll teach you everything you want to know.

Not that I'm in any way significantly knowledgeable, but having machines that take each of the systems below, I'd back your last two off a notch and add one on the end: DDX1, 328: Medium. Up to 13mm depending on machine. Thread up to 415/6 cord 794, 7x3: Heavy. 5-21mm depending on needle and machine. Thread up to 514/8 cord 331: Very Heavy 5-25mm depending on needle and machine setup. Thread up to 514/8 cord I'm fairly sure 1000 system needles fit in somewhere between 794 and 331 but I've never actually encountered any. That's only for threaded needle machines. Needle & awl machines are another story entirely.

For hafts, get in touch with Dick Anderson at thornapple river boots and send him pictures of the awls you wants hafts for. He does the nicest shoemaking awl hafts in the business.

Thanks Steve, I'd be interested in pictures and the bearing-to-bearing measurement, if it's easy to get. Thanks.

I'm guessing you've worked this out already, but if you screw the winder to a piece of wood, or your table, and fix the tension unit from a regular industrial winder just behind it you can run the thread through that and get it working the way you need with only one person. It's also good to know that the neato powered winder Campbell-Randall sells works for Pearson #6 bobbins.