Order and Chaos

I recently picked up a Singer 111 walking foot and it does the exact same thing, it's most noticeable on chaps leather, after I run a seam it looks like a tiny bulldozer left its track marks in the leather fairly deeply. I talked to the mechanic at the sewing machine shop I got the Singer from and he told me I had three choices. First was to take a dressing stone to the feed dog and smooth down and round off all the sharp edges milled in to the dog. The second choice is swap out the sawtooth feed dog for the smooth feed dog (the one he showed me had a hard silicone foot that would press against the leather). The third choice was a spur of the moment idea I had and asked him about. I was wondering if the teeth on the feet dog could be filled in with something like Epoxy or JB Weld and then filed smooth and flat. He told me that he had never tried anything like that before but he doesn't see any reason why it shouldn't work.

The nice thing about making your own tools from basic supplies is, besides the lower cost, you learn from the experience and discover news ways to make it better if you want to do it again. I bought the standard Tandy stitching pony, but after using it for a while decided I need to make my own that will be similar to yours. One change I'm going to make is the clamping bolt. Instead of a regular nut or wingnut, I'm going to use a knobbed plastic handle with a nut insert like you see on a push lawnmower handle attachment.