Uwe

If you’re going to rewrite the manual, make sure you get the hook timing section right. If the original Juki instructions don’t work on your machine, you need to figure out why they don’t work.

You just wrap the uncut, too-long piece of leather belting around the hand wheel and treadle wheel and hold the ends so they overlap. Where the belts ends overlap, that’s where you cut. Use a metal clip to connect the ends. Use a normal tape measure to estimate how long the belt material should be, then buy it a little longer to be on the safe side. Having some extra also allows you to practice connecting the ends before you work on the actual belt. I’d recommend using urethane belting instead of leather. It’s easy to make custom belts from urethane belt stock and they will very likely last much longer. Depending on your treadle base design, you may have to connect the belt ends after you thread the open belt into place (sometimes it’s not possible to hook up an already-closed belt.) Please post a bunch pictures of your machine and treadle from various angles. We want to see what you have, and it’s often useful to just add an arrow to a picture rather than composing a long paragraph to describe what we’re talking about.

I set up an Adler 30-1 recently, using a 1,500W servo motor with a 50mm pulley and a needle position sensor. It works beautifully, especially with the needle position sensor. I can adjust the needle stop positions to perfectly catch the brief moment where the foot lifts up, to easily change direction. The other needle stop position for the perfect position to pull the material out of the machine. My table is a custom made piece with the motor mounted on top just behind the machine. Your cast iron table may have a very different layout, but it may be suitable for mounting the motor in a similar position. My preference is for three-piece servo motor sets (motor, controller, and speed input are separate pieces , not integrated.) This allows for the most flexible installation options, in my experience. I happened to have a suitable 3L belt on hand to use with my setup. You can also use a 5/16” (8mm) polyurethane belt material to make a custom length belt in about five minutes, and it’s much easier than trying to find a belt at the hardware or automotive store. Here are a few pics from my Adler 30-1 motor installation. The motor is mounted on a hinge, with an adjustable latch to change belt tension. This picture shows the door hinge I used to attach the motor to the table: This picture shows the adjustable latch to put tension on the belt: I used a similar setup for a Juki LS-341. This picture shows both machines and how the speed input is mounted and connected to the pedal. The motor on the Juki is mounted in a fixed position directly to the table. I adjusted the length of the polyurethane belt to provide the correct tension. The polyurethane belt is a like very thick rubber band and can be stretched a little to install and remove the belt. This is particularly useful if the machine doesn’t tilt back, like the Adler or similar patchers. This may not be the exact same setup you’ll use on your Adler, but looking at different installations may help you figure out how you can solve your particular installation problem.

Yes, the video actually explains that in detail.

You may be pressing the wrong button. The left button is for the stitch length adjustment, the right one is used to re-engage the safety clutch. The video below is using a similar machine. It shows how the stitch length mechanism works at the beginning. The stitch length adjustment on your machine should work the same way.

Perhaps your bobbin tension or bobbin threading is not right. I’d check that first. Also, the top thread path may contribute to the problem. Perhaps the thread take-up lever is not working correctly. A few pictures would be great. Show us your top thread path and how you thread the bobbin. A video snippet of the machine misbehaving would be really good, too. Best way to share videos here is to upload an unlisted video to YouTube and post the link to it here.

Congrats on your new toy! The hammered paint rattle can is not a bad option, actually. I painted my Consew 255 using that and it came out looking quite nice. It was a lot of work prepping the machine, removing all the small bits, plugging holes, etc. There’s several topics here on LW of people restoring and repainting their machines, and suitable paint options. Try a targeted Google search like “site:leatherworker.net sewing machine paint”. It may give better results than the built-in search engine here on the LW website. Simply embracing the vintage clean workhorse look is also a valid option. Also, don’t be shy about starting a new topic as relevant questions come up. Individual, focused topics are easier to read and search for than run-on, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink type topics.

Yup, German import here, from the Lake Constance/Bodensee area. That machine in the pictures sure looks like a Singer 111W155 or Consew 225 class machine, or some other variation. It does appear to be a compound feed machine with top/bottom/needle feed. No reverse. If it’s a Singer, it’ll say Singer or Simanco on many of the parts inside. Otherwise, it’s likely a rebadged Consew, and you may seek Seiko markings. These are generally good starter machines, easy to work on and to learn sewing machine maintenance. Parts are generally cheap and readily available. My first industrial machine and gateway drug was a Consew 225.

We’re gonna need a picture of that machine. That tag may be just the serial number. We also need some location info, Europe, North America, elsewhere? Here in the U.S. there’s a United Sewing company that apparently sells rebranded clones of Juki, Durkopp Adler, and other machines. http://unitedsewing.com/united_machines_sewing.asp

You’re holding the wrong thread. In your video you’re holding the bobbin thread and the top thread gets pulled into the machine. Instead, hold the top thread and pull it tight after it gets wrapped around the hook - that pulls the bobbin thread up through the feed dog and to the top.

Thanks for moving the topic to the public forum @barclay The feed motion eccentrics on your machine should look like this: One eccentric (top picture) if your machine has no “P” in the model code, or two eccentrics if it has a “P” in the model code. To adjust the feed eccentric: 1. Bring the machine into the “needle 0.6mm above BDC” position. 2. Loosen both set screws that clamp the eccentric to the shaft (NOT the two screws that connect the rod to the eccentric). One set screw should accessible from top, the other from the rear access port. 3. Flip the lever up and down and rotate the eccentric on the shaft until there is no noticeable feed movement. It should be a subtle adjustment in your case. Normally one set screw is vertically aligned with the shaft when the eccentric is in the neutral position. 4. Tighten the top set screw first (if it’s at the bottom you’re off by 180˚), then the other set screw (it should be accessible from the back of the machine) If you have the vertical feed eccentric, adjust the horizontal feed eccentric first, then adjust the vertical eccentric so that the feed dog rises at the very front, just before it starts moving towards the back. By the way, you have to click on the user on the pop-up list that shows up as you type the user handle in order to properly tag a user and send notifications, like this: The user handle then becomes highlighted and activated like this:

To adjust feed dog height, loosen these two screws (red arrows) and rotate the clamp on the shaft. It’ll be a very small adjustment. Thanks for all the other photos, by the way! They will be useful before too long.

This might make things a bit simpler to investigate, since there are fewer moving parts involved in the feed mechanism. Here’s what I would do next: Dial in the maximum stitch length and turn the hand wheel until the feed dog is in the very front position. Keep flipping the reverse lever up and down. Observe and inspect everything that moves anywhere in the machine. Oil every spot that has two surfaces touching and moving against each other. That throat plate and feed dog combo is likely for a standard feed machine and may not be correct for your variant. Parts sometimes fit, but don’t really work. The binding feed dog and throat plate set looks very different and may have different clearances. Please post more pictures of the head, internals and rear of your machine, with cover plates removed. I spend entirely too much time trying to find a suitable picture online just to add an arrow.

Your machine may be a binding machine - it appears to be missing the linkage that drives the vertical feed dog moment. Here’s a picture of a standard Pfaff 145 with the clamping block installed that normally connects a rod to the vertical feed drive eccentric on the upper shaft (red circle) Your machine instead has a clamp installed that fixes the position of the vertical feed drive shaft (red circle): I annotated a picture by @Constabularyfrom an earlier thread that shows the difference in the feed drive eccentrics on the top shaft between standard and binding versions of the Pfaff 145. This is the original thread:

Your threaded stud may not be seated all the way in, making the thumb screw thread bottom out too early. The bits inside the thumbscrew (red arrow) are not supposed to stick out that far. The Pfaff 145/545 parts (https://www.diamondneedle.com/documents/Pfaff Parts Manual/145_545.pdf) manual shows how the parts of the lever fit together. The threaded rod (blue) in the screen shot below is the part that may stick out too far. That threaded rod is probably held in place by a set screw. Getting to that set screw may not be easy. The little bushing (red) sometimes breaks (if plastic) or goes missing altogether. If you remove the thumbscrew, be mindful that there’s a spring in the assembly. Things may pop out unexpectedly.

I have a feeling this is an adjustment issue (most likely in the feed mechanism) or a missing or incorrect part (for example, the spring for the reverse lever is broken or missing) Top thread path in your picture looks good. Try this: Dial in maximum stitch length and turn the hand wheel until the feed dog is in the very front. It should NOT touch the front of the throat plate opening. Flipping the reverse lever up and down shows the full range of motion of the feed dog - it should not touch the throat opening at either end. If it does, that’s a problem.Ideally the movement of the feed dog is centered in the throat plate opening. Remove the motor belt and lift the feet with the manual lever. Turn over the hand wheel by hand and feel for resistance. There should be almost no resistance when turning the wheel, and any resistance should be very even during the entire stitch cycle. On the Pfaffs I had, giving the hand wheel a good spin would keep the machine spinning for two or three cycles before it stopped due to friction. If you feel strong resistance or a “tight spot” at any point during the cycle then that indicates a problem somewhere in the mechanism. Sometimes, when the feed motion mechanism touches something it shouldn’t, the reverse lever start moving to compensate. If your stitch length/reverse lever moves during the stitch cycle, something is wrong. One thing I noticed in your photos is that your bobbin case opener finger is not adjusted correctly. The gap between the finger and the bobbin case is much too big. If it’s touching the throat plate it may may cause a bind. This may not be the cause of your stitch length issues or bind/block, but it’s definitely something you should fix. It’s easy to adjust.Here’s a video that shows how that finger (bobbin case opener) works and how to adjust it (shown on a Juki 341, but he bobbin case opener function is the same on your Pfaff 145.) Please report back, and please post some additional pictures (type plate on front of machine, and the underside of the machine would be useful.) Videos a super helpful when trying to solve motion problems. Figure out how to upload a video to YouTube to help with remote trouble shooting. The Pfaff 145/545 are generally VERY nice machines and worth spending time to adjust them correctly. They’re among the smoothest machines I’ve worked on.

If I were to get a DA 969, I’d definitely opt for the version with the built-in motor and jog dial capability. Reasons for buying the DA 969: 1. You actually NEED the capability of sewing 1.2” (30mm) thickness, or with thread thicker than TEX 415 (US). None of the 441 class machines will do that. 2. You can take a free 2-day class on how to service the DA 969 at the DA facility in Bielefeld, Germany. I took that class a few years ago. Priceless. 3. You like your current Adlers because they are originals, not copies. 4. You realize that $10K today was $5K in the early 90’s, so it’s really the same price as a Durkopp Adler 205-370 when it came out. And the DA 969 has much higher specs than the 205. 5. You want to support companies that invest in innovation and develop new products, rather than just copying what others have created decades ago. Or companies that care a little more about the well being of their employees and the environment. 6. You can afford it and simply enjoy working with state of the art tools and machines. Also, if you don’t need the capabilities of a 969, consider buying an original Juki TSC-441. They’re still in production.

It’s $222 for a box of 100, so it’s $2.22 per needle. Far cheaper than the awls and needles I got for my Puritan.

Seems like we just went over much of that in this topic It’s a ballpark range kind of thing, as you said. The main things to look for are: 1. You can manually trip the clutch by holding the clutch and turning the hand wheel to make sure it works at all. 2. The clutch doesn’t let go during normal sewing, only when it really needs to.

A modern machine that can sew a stack of 1.2” (30mm) is the Durkopp Adler H-Type 969 This machine is designed to use both System 794 and System 1000H needles. Using System 794 needles lowers the max thickness you can sew but you have a bigger selection of leather tips available. The System 1000H replaced the System 1000. The only difference appears to be that the new System 1000H needle has a scarf. The Schmetz 1000H needles are available by special order.

Here’s a video that goes over the adjustment of the bobbin case opener and what to watch out for. Your Adler machines have a nearly identical bobbin case opener design.

I’ve never seen one of those cable things in real life, just in that diagram I posted earlier. I don’t know the steps to replace one, sorry.

If it does have the safety clutch (which is likely) it looks like the diagram shown below. The arrow points to one of two adjustment screws, labeled “w”. The “w/18” in your post means “look for the thing labeled ‘w’ in diagram number 18 at the end of the manual” I suppose you could disable the clutch by tightening the adjustment screws all the way, but I’m not sure why you would want to do that.

Your screw that holds the rear presser foot may be going in from the wrong side (perhaps presser foot shaft is rotated 180˚) The split bottom end of the shaft has threads on one side only. The screw needs to be inserted from the side opposite those thread. That way the screw will squeeze the split shaft legs together and hold the foot very tight.

The safety clutch on the Adler 67 engages in only one position during the 360˚ rotation, so it’s not possible to engage the cluitch at the wrong 180˚ position. My Adler 67 hook timing video show the operation of the clutch starting at the 1:50 mark. At the 2:02 mark you can see the hole opposite the ball appearing in the outer hole of shell of the clutch. In this position, you can adjust the set screw inside the clutch to adjust spring pressure on the ball. This will adjust the force necessary to pop, or dis-engage, the clutch.