gottaknow

Yep, great apparel machine. Direct drive needle feed with Juki’s dry head system. The CP180 control panel is very user friendly but you’ll need the manuals for all the programming capabilities. All the cables are plugged into the control box, pretty straightforward connecting using process of elimination. Adjustable speed control at your fingertips, very smooth and lots of torque. T90 bonded nylon max. Needle sizes 12-21, but will require hook adjustments. It will sew waxed canvas, heavy wool, denim, and garment weight leather. Forget veg tan. The feed dogs will mark leather for sure. These machines replaced the Juki 5410’s. The heads are really heavy because of the motor. Do not, and I repeat, do not remove the motor. The foot lift should be electric. Have fun! I had 30 of these units in my last factory. Regards, Eric

I love the Juki direct drive motors. Strong, quiet, no belt slot for an operator to drop all their stuff into the motor guard. I bought 30 machines or so with them 4 years ago, no issues. The Brother direct drives are decent as well. We bought some 7300 series that now have a step motor driving the feed dogs. The machine senses a bump in the sewing and the computer adjusts the feed dogs accordingly. It’s a drop feed machine, but sews at least as well as needle feeds. We’ll use them for binding. The Juki 1341’s are nice. I have 3 at the moment. Regards, Eric

We use 1/8” steel tables on our Brother 342G’s. They are stand up automatic work stations. The operators do rest their arms on them at least part of the time. No complaints so far. As a side note, my welding bench at work is a section of a restaurant grill. Best welding bench ever. Regards, Eric

Your top and bottom shafts are out of time. Regards, Eric

I would recheck your belt timing to start with. Tip the machine back, place your left thumb on the take up lever until you can feel it’s at the very top of the stroke. Then check your timing marks. It’s also possible that the lower belt cog doesn’t have the correct screw in the groove of the bottom shaft, making it appear to be in time, but it’s not. No telling what’s been done incorrectly on a used machine. Regards, Eric

Those were common in factories in the 70’s and 80’s. Thank goodness machine companies started building split needle bar machines. In 1984, the company I worked for bought 20 Consew 327RB-1’s. Pretty decent machines using the Variostop air-gap motors with needle positioning, which makes sewing with a split bar much easier. Mitsubishi figured out how to include under bed trimmers on their 2200 series split bars, not for the feint of heart to adjust the knife linkages to work after changing gauge sets. Today, Juki’s split bars are much easier to do re-adjust the knife mechanisms. Regards, Eric

TriFlow stays longer than any other grease I’ve used. And I’ve used them all. Regards, Eric

I like TriFlow grease. It coats the gears and a thin film stays there a long time. It’s also not sticky so it doesn’t attract every piece of lint and crud in a two mile radius. When I don’t know where I set it down, I use oil like Bob said. Regards, Eric

Hi Kathryn, welcome! Sorry about your oil woes. There’s no adjustment to regulate the flow of oil on the top arm of the machine. As long as there’s oil in the reservoir, you don’t have to worry much about the machine freezing up. What tends to happen on wick oiled machines is the oil eventually pools up around the needle bar bushing as it’s the low point in the top arm. To prevent what you’re describing, most machines have a hunk of felt in the low spot that has a wick that runs from the low spot and follows the casting of the top arm back to the right end of the head and actually wicks the excess oil back to the bottom of the head. As the end of this wick is lower than your needle bar bushing, it should pull the excess oil away from it. If you remove the end cover of the machine you should see the bigger piece of felt with a wick leading away from it. If you have over oiled the machine, the best way to balance it back out is to get a bunch of lightweight cotton fabric. Old t shirts work great, as long as they’re 100% cotton. Cut it up and stuff the end of the head with it. Let it set overnight or longer. It will soak up the excess oil for you. If there isn’t any felt for the return system, you’ll continue to fight this. I know on the Judi 1541 this return system is there and does a decent job. If you’re not sure what’s what, post a picture of the area where your needle bar goes through the bushing, looking at the top of it with the end cover removed. Have fun! Regards, Eric

I’ve been posting less here for numerous reasons, one in particular is I moved from Spokane to Seattle to accept a new challenge in my career. The company I’m working for produces gloves for the military, perhaps the finest gloves I’ve ever seen. We often sew GoreTex, Urethane, and goat leather all together using T30 bonded nylon and a size 12 or 14 needle. A ball point needle, not a leather needle. That’s not in any book. I have two full time mechanics and 100,000 sq ft building to take care of. We are using old and new memory stitch machines to do repetitive sewing tasks to reduce costs and improve quality. We build custom jigs and do our own programming to suit our needs. I’m thankful I had experience with seam sealers over the years as all of our Gore fabrics get seam sealed. On gloves, that isn’t always easy. We do extensive in house testing to meet the mil specs. Of all the companies I’ve worked for, this one requires the most out of the box thinking. Which reminds me that I need to get in touch this week with Mr. Kovar about an idea I have. Regards, Eric

Keep in mind Uwe that manufacturers also don’t say to turn the needle towards the hook slightly, advance or retard hook timing, raise or lower needle bars slightly, put Teflon tape on presser feet, bevel the edges of feed dogs, wrap the thread twice around the tension disc, use a drop of oil in the bobbin case to control backlash, or even use that little pin at times for certain threads for thread control. The reason they don’t say all those things is because they’re not sitting in a factory where the variables change every day and you either solve problems creatively with logic and critical thinking, or production stops. You don’t want to limit your skill set just because it’s not in a book. I’ve used that little pin plenty of times to solve a thread issue. I’ve also removed those pins, cut out the center bar on the discs so they spin and converted the tension unit to roller discs. None of that’s in any book. I’ve worked with some amazing mechanics In my 38 years in the business. They all had one thing in common. “A manual is simply a starting point to help understand the machine. It won’t think for you, but can stop you from thinking.” Regards, Eric

Juki’s dry head system has been around for a while now. On my 9010’s that get 40 hours a week on them, we check the grease monthly. Remove the caps and press the grease down with your finger. Time will tell if this system works long term, but no way these machines will last as long as the old Singers and such. Too much alloys and not enough steel throughout them. Factories only need them to last five years until they are fully depreciated. Regards, Eric

Common machine in apparel factories in the 60's on up. Needle feed with ability to adjust stitch length independently between needle bar and feed dogs. This was to adjust for ply shift in flimsy fabrics. True workhorse for medium weight fabric. Will also handle nylon quite well. T60 thread with a 16 needle is pretty average. Regards, Eric

For some reason, people that make after market parts seem to think they know more than the engineers that designed and built the machines. I'll never understand it, but it always rears its ugly head when least expected. Glad you figured it out! Regards, Eric

Aside from all the oiling requirements that Wiz addressed, the 281-24 is primarily for woven fabric. It's a compound feed which means the needle bar moves front to back with the feed dogs to move the material through. It sews flimsy nylon and polyester to medium weights. Wiz is right about the stitch length on leather, you'll likely get tearing. That's not to say the machine isn't useful. We used 100's of the 281 series to sew nylon baffles together to make down jackets and vests. It's best feature is there are two stitch length mechanisms. One is for the needle bar stroke, the second for the feed dogs. You can actually set the feed dogs to move slower than the needle bar in order to prevent ply shift in flimsy material. Really handy for production sewing. They are meant to sew at high speed, and they will fly. It was the first series of machines I worked on back in 1980, so I have a fondness for them. The 281 class covers a wide array of machines, basically using the same casting. There are some 281's that are drop feed only, the needle bar moves straight up and down and the feed dogs move the material. Not so great on slippery fabric, great on cotton. the 281-30 has a close couple puller that sits directly behind the presser foot. It is really useful for setting binding on lightweight material. It is a drop feed machine so the binding folder can sit really close to the needle. It came standard with a binding foot, feed dog, and a throat plate that included the folder mount. Keeping with the dual stitch length feature of the 281's, the stitch length adjustment that controls the needle bar actually controls the speed of the puller. Some of the nicest looking lightweight binding I've ever seen came off a 281-30. They are still used to run binding without setting it on material and simply making hangar loops for shirts and jackets. Regards, Eric

Single needle chains stitch machines don't backtack in a way that lockstitch machines do. It's a basting stitch designed for pre-assembly of component parts. The stitch is easily unchained and removed by pulling the thread where the stitch ended. The beginning of the stitching will not come out. It is simply for joining materials that are sewn over, or bartacked later in the process. All it has to do is not unchain until the next operation. The easiest way to do this is to "chain off" a little extra which makes it harder to unchain. ALL chainstitch sewing must be secured at the end of the stitch. For a joining stitch, in the case af a single needle chain, you'll never get the tension tight enough to make a secure seam. Anywhere along the seam, if the single thread is cut or abraided, it will unravel. All chain stitch types are the same way, including two thread machines, cover stitch, overlock, blindstitch, chain stitch button hole machines (there are lockstitch button hole machines), line tackers (Reece S2 class), blanket stitch, basically any machine that doesn't have a bobbin. In a circular operation such a hemming pants with a blind stitch, you simply overlap at least an inch. All that said, the single needle chain machine is very useful in a limited scope of applications. In custom sewing for example, you can quickly sew together a dress, do a fitting, and quickly make adjustments then re-sew inside the seam allowance with a lockstitch. The basting stitch is quickly removed after final sewing. As a side note, you can preconstruct something using a lockstitch machine by loosening the bobbin tension until the needle thread is laying on top of the material so it can easily removed. Regards, Eric

I can't tell if your looper is bad from the angle of your picture. Of course the definitive test is to compare it to a new one. They don't usually bend because of the hardening, they just break. As for the tension, try removing any extra wraps like at the post on top of the head. There are no hard and fast rules for all the thread guides. You use what the thread and sewing conditions require. As I said before, on these types of machines, tension is your main adjustments. It appears to be threaded right, but check any reference you may have. Don't be afraid to try different thread paths. It also appears your thread is too heavy for your test fabric. That will cause gathering. Regards, Eric

Let's face it, any forum on the net will have different personalities. This particular forum has a very wide range, including a lot of international members whose nuances and phrasing is very different. My advice is to always put on your grown up pants and take everything with a grain of salt. When you post in an open forum, you are inviting responses from a wide variety of folks and I personally appreciate all points of view. I have been training mechanics for over 30 years and I start each apprentice with the same opening statement. "The journey you are beginning is a long, arduous process. It won't be pleasant at times and you will make many mistakes, some will be expensive. The main thing you will learn is not so much turning screwdrivers. Monkeys can turn screwdrivers. I will however teach you how to think as it relates to sewing machines. I will bore you with theory, a step at a time building on what you've learned. I expect mistakes as it's part of the training. I will correct, criticize and repeat this process thousands of times until you learn how to think as it relates to machines. In the end, you can either go through this process and reap the financial rewards as I have, or quit and do something else." I've had far more trainees quit than to complete the 5 year apprenticeship. I had to go through this and there were many days I wanted to quit. I was driven to succeed because the man who trained me was 10 times harsher than anything I've seen here in this forum and I wasn't about to let him get to me. I eventually took his job. Most folks come here to learn about things they don't know about. Realizing there may have been a better method is a lesson and will only benefit a person down the road. After 38 years of machine repair, I'm still learning. Learning comes in many forms, you just have to glean what's useful. Don't let the different personalities be a hinderence to the learning process. Regards, Eric

If that is the true shape of your looper, it's bad. The face of the looper should be flat and parallel with the needle scarf. People that don't understand how chain stitch machines work, will often damage loopers. There is virtually no reason to modify the shape of any looper, but especially one on a single thread machine. It is the shape of the looper that determines how long the looper keeps the triangle open so the needle can descend down through it. If the looper has been ground or reshaped in any manner, the machine will skip or not sew at all, no matter how you set anything else. It's easy to change needle length on this class of machine without changing anything but the needle bar height. You rotate the looper until the point is dead center on the needle, hold that position, insert the different needle, and move the needle bar until the looper is in the same spot. The machine doesn't care how long your needle is as long as you don't change the rotational timing of the looper. As for tension, the tighter the tension, the smaller the thread loop, looser it gets bigger. That makes it necessary to make tension adjustments when you use different thread. Also, when you turn the machine by hand, your loop size will be bigger than when you sew under power. Without question, the most common adjustment on this class of machine is the thread tension. Have fun! Regards, Eric

I only use grease on the feed cam and fork. I oil the rest of the machine. Rotating gears throw grease everywhere, well at the much higher speeds used in factories at least. No reason you couldn't though. Regards, Eric

This is a common issue on these machines. The cam on the shaft is harder steel than the fork, so that's where the wear ends up. The forks are easily replaced and are inexpensive. I don't depend on oil/felt. I use TriFlow grease, which comes in a tube. Stays lubed a long time. It's not that hard to replace the cam, but start with the fork. Regards, Eric

Greetings Bert, I'm attaching a simple description of the cycle of a single thread chain stitch with a rotary hook. It's a simple stitch formation, but different than what most people encounter. I watched your video and I believe I see the looper hitting the needle. Make sure the looper is as close as it can be without deflecting the needle. Also, make sure the hook point is entering in the middle of the needle scarf. You may need to adjust your needle bar height to accomplish that. Have fun! Regards, Eric

Turned out great. You're a brave man for taking on that Reece 101. Regards, Eric

I would try a different Juki dealer. They have a lot of wiggle room on their mark-ups. You will go broke buying Pfaff parts. Regards, Eric

Yep. Regards, Eric