Uwe

Quite often a needle breaks because it's being deflected as it's going down and it hits the feed dog instead of the hole in the feed dog. At the right speed this will break a needle every time, no matter what size or tip. Make sure your needle points at the center of the feed dog hole when no material is in play (check service manual for specifics.) You need to support your workpiece so that it does not pull or push in any direction as the machine sews - that's often not easy to do. If you're letting a heavy bag, or a whole saddle dangle from the end of your cylinder arm, your needle is doomed. You also need to make sure your workpiece lays perfectly flat on the throat plate so that the needle does not hit a slope as it goes down. According to the Durkopp Adler 8967 manuals, your machine uses needle System 2134-35, which may not be the same as System 134-35. The slim cylinder arm machines are usually designed for light to medium duty work. If your "pretty thick leather" is a couple layers of 10 oz. veg tan, your needle (and eventually the machine) is doomed. For "pretty thick leather" you probably need a Juki TSC-441 or Adler 205 class machine.

Here's a quick visual comparison of bobbin sizes:

We just really need to know what the measurements on that Ferdco machine are, otherwise it's just a mildly entertaining "guess what the dimensions of my obscure Ferdco machine are" game. It's kind of backwards.

I actually have one of the Harbor Freight hydraulic lift tables,which is super useful in many situations and it's great for moving heavy table-top machines like the Landis 16 or the Puritan from the storage shelf to the work surface. But that table actually weighs 190 lbs all by itself, so getting it in and out of my car for pickups and deliveries is a no-go. Also, the lowest it will go is about 11 inches off the ground. I'd love to have something compact and portable with lift arms that I can use with a sling to lift one of my 200+ pounds long arm beasts into and out of a table safely by myself. I also have a big manual pallet stacker, but that thing is way too big and will never make it inside the house.

Personally, the only clutch motors I like are the ones attached to fancy Efka controllers. Unless you have some nostalgic attachment to plain clutch motors, there's really no need to subject yourself to them. Even a $115 cheapo servo motor with a small 2" pulley will make a world of difference. For around $200 you can buy one of my personal favorites, a Sewpro 1,100W servo motor with plenty of low-end torque and very low 100rpm starting speed (most other servo motors start spinning with 300 rpm.)

Looking good! Love that lift cart, too - I need one of those. That's a very nice table setup, actually.

The Adler 220 machines do have reverse, just via foot pedal instead of hand lever (note the three pedals; foot lift, speed, reverse)

Here's the spec sheet for the Adler 220: Leaflet_Adler_class_220 (1).pdf It should have better specs than the Juki 562 all around. HUGE bobbins. Very desirable and capable machines in my mind. If that CL machine works, it's a steal at $650.

How about a few pictures of your and Ferdinand 900b Bull with close-up of the hook and needle plate area (hook cover cap open or removed?) We're just guessing otherwise. Ferdinand changed base machines for their modified version over time. If your machine is based on this version of the Consew 754r: then it's really a Seiko CH-7B: and that machine's business end looks more like an Adler 205 style to me: Adler 205 and Juki 441 style plates my still fit your Ferdinand, or fit with minor modifications. I have one flat-top harness maker throat plate that fits nicely on both Adler 205 and Juki 441 designs, you just have to use small washers or different throat plate mounting screws with larger heads on the 441 designs.

Never heard of Apex Tuffmaster before, but it sure looks just like an Adler 220 to me. Casting details are very close to mine, which is less complete and not quite as pretty right now. Perhaps a copy or a importer re-badge job just like Chandler's re-badge of the Adler 67. Might be worth checking out in person. Those machines are wicked heavy and awkward to move - I can barely lift one end of it myself. Don't just plop the head on the concrete floor either - the front end will be resting on fragile hook bits instead of sturdy frame casting parts.)

What you probably really need is a feed-off-the-arm zig-zag machine like the SewPro 2156 shown in the video below. They are complex specialty machines and not cheap. Sewpro is located in Ephrata, PA, a bit less of a logistical challenge than ordering directly from China.

In the absence of a service manual for the exact machine you have, a manual for a close relative or successor model is the next best thing. The Durkopp Adler Manuals Resource page actually has a full set of documentation listed for the Adler 221, including an Adler 221 service manual. With a little luck, there will be a LOT of carryover from the Adler 220 design.

There's a chance that the lack of synchronization marks is due to fact that the shafts may not need to be synchronized. On the Adler 220 the front/back movement of the feed dog is directly linked to the stitch length excenter on the top shaft. The hook position can be adjusted freely and is not tied to the top/bottom drive shaft synch position. The only thing potentially affected by the relative top/bottom drive shaft position is the up/down movement of the feed dog. There's a little excenter on the bottom drive shaft that moves the feed dog fork up and down. If that excenter can be independently adjusted, there's really nothing left to synchronize between top and bottom drive shaft, which would explain the lack of synchronization marks. I don't know this for certain yet - moving my Adler 220 from its storage spot to verify is not practical right now. On most machines with a triple feed walking foot design, the general rule for vertical movements of needle, inner presser foot and feed dog is: When the descending needle tip is level with the top of the throat plate, both the descending inner presser foot and ascending feed dog should also be level with the top of the throat plate. This should be easy to verify. One other timing aspect that affects smoothness of a machine is the relative position of the thread take-up lever and the hook. Verify that the thread take-up lever is at its very bottom position exactly when the thread wraps around the farthest point of hook. If that is not the case you may get thread snapping noises and other unrefined side effects.

I'm certainly not the first one to do this and tables that are designed with wheels in mind are the best solution. But I wanted to figure out a way to retrofit my tables with removable wheels that wouldn't raise the table much and be very sturdy. I spent the day at Techshop to put my Adler 467 on "proper" wheels. I have to move it from storage area to the work area whenever I want to use it. It's been strapped on top of mover's dollies, but that was just a temporary solution and not very ergonomic at all for actual sewing. Here's what I came up with today. Perhaps it'll inspire some folks to make something similar or to improve upon my design. Design goals: Wheels must install without tools and be easily removable. Raise table less than 2" (5cm) to keep table height and pedal ergonomics good. No modification of original table legs. Lockable swivel castors. No decrease in overall stability. This project has been bouncing around in my head for some time. The solution shown here consists of two skateboard-like units that clamp onto the original legs on either side of the table. The hinged wheel units on each end clamp onto the floor mount tabs of original table legs. The weight of the table provides the clamping force via hinge levers - the heavier the table, the stronger the clamping force and thus stability. Total cost of materials was about $50 ($25 for the four swivels castors, $15 for 2'x4' fancy phenolic 3/4" plywood, $10 for fours hinges.) Here's what the table looks like wth the new wheels: These close-ups show how the hinged wheel end units clamp down on the tables mounting plates: Here are the parts for one of the wheel units (seven 3/4" plywood pieces, two locking swivel casters, two hinges): The center support board is connected to the two wheel end pieces via hinges - this provides the clamping action to hold the unit in place. The two end pieces have a vertical offset like a fifth-wheel trailer to keep the center support board low enough for good ergonomics of the table and pedal. The sides walls of each wheel assembly are spaced to fit snugly around the table's vertical metal legs to provide support against sideways tilting. It takes more than one person to put these wheel "boots" on. Taking them off is easy - just lift up one end of the table and the wheel boots fall off. The footprint of the wheeled table is considerably deeper front to back, compared to the original table. This provides room for the swivel casters to rotate 360˚ without compromising front-to-back stability. This setup is not going to tip over backwards when you tilt the sewing machine head back.

I have a few old-school Box-X machines (and a pile of cam disks) that I'm dreading to work on. The only one I have any real confidence in is this Singer 68, which seems to be in nice, functional condition, but I know very little about them: For reference just to see what's out there and for rough price guidance, I occasionally visit Miami Sewing Machine's website: http://www.miamisewing.com/specials/tacker.htm I've never dealt with Miami Sewing and can't really say if they're "worthy", but at least they put their inventory online with pictures and a price.On the plus side, they're a day trip away from the Tampa area, which avoids costly shipping of these complex, apparently hard to repair, heavy and fragile machines.

That Singer 42-5 hand wheel looks just right on that machine, I think. Sometimes it's the unexpected combinations that work surprisingly well. Nice job and cool setup!

Googling that exact term will bring up a bunch of reference charts, including one by our LW members TechSew Ron: http://www.techsew.com/blog/needle-thread-chart/

The Durkopp Adler 205-370 Service Manual (I only have the German version: Service -Manual.pdf) describes how the reverse lever mechanism has different friction settings, depending on whether pneumatic actuators are installed or not. Without pneumatics, screw "r" needs to be screwed all the way in, and screw "o" needs to be tightened to adjust the friction of the lever movement.

See below . . .

Upon further review, it turns out the cap I spent all of $1.29 and ten minutes on, actually DOES fit slim cylinder arm machines with "normal" size hooks and bobbins. The pictures below show the cap on my Sunstar KM-380. So perhaps the cap will also fit Pfaff 335 machines. The Mitsubishi CU-865 actually has a large hook and uses M-Size bobbins (now I really want to get that CU-865 to work!) Please note how dirty the SunStar KM-380 machine is. People have occasionally teased that my machines are too clean. It took considerable willpower to not wipe this one down before taking pictures - I'm making progress.

I've not yet come across a better version of that manual, sorry. Many areas and will be similar to other Pfaff 145/545 machines, especially in the head portion. The Pfaff 345 hook/bobbin should be nearly identical to the ones used in the other x45 machines and use the same bobbin threading scheme. The video below shows how I thread the bobbin of my Pfaff 545. If your hook and bobbin cap looks different, please post some pictures.

Sold.

Thanks for that link, DC. I had come across that part on the aaasew.com website and I actually have ordered from them a few times before. It's a moderately clunky ordering process and takes 5-6 weeks if they can get the part. Meanwhile a made trip to my local hardware store to try out one base part candidate I had high hopes for. Alas, it wasn't meant to be ... I was really hoping these $1.29 chain link fence post caps would work out (original on the right, modified on the left): The inside diameter is actually big enough for the hook, but only if the cap is lowered and sits centered with the hook. I just put the cap over the hook for these photos. You can see it sits quite a bit below the grooves. When I align it with the grooves, the bottom interferes: It was worth a try, though.

Thanks for the part number and measurement references! That CAD sketch is nice - thanks DC! I'll do some trials over the next few days. I'm hoping to find some suitable, readily available base part that I can easily modify to make these hook cover cups.

Here's a picture of a binder setup for the Durkopp Adler 205, which shows both an 80˚ binder and a 45˚ binder (tape folder):