Uwe

So how did the belt get on the machine if you didn't install it and Bob shipped the machine with the hand wheel removed?

I wouldn't recommend starting with a Singer 29K unless you've used them before and know they will work for you. Save up (or borrow) enough money to buy the machine you really need. Otherwise you'll spend a great deal of effort, time, and money buying shipping and figuring out machines that will not work for you in the long run. Sieck also has some cheaper post bed machines like this Pfaff 193 post bed on their shoe making machine page. It's seem like a MUCH better starting point than a Singer 29K for shoe production.

I'd try calling the Coats folks directly to find out where you can buy their products: http://www.coats.com/index.asp?pageid=37&country=usa

A few things: You gotta tell us what you have. Pictures always help. My crystal ball showing me your motor installation is all foggy today. If you can't figure out the belt tension mechanism on your setup by looking at it, perhaps it's not such a great idea to start taking things apart. Whoever sold this thing to you probably has a phone and an interest in keeping you happy. If you don't trust that person to assemble things properly, perhaps not such a good source for purchases. I'd advise against taking things apart just to check whether they were properly installed in the first place. Quite often you introduce new problems unless you really know what you're doing. I'm not sure why you feel this is an important first thing to do before commissioning the machine. There are perhaps a dozen of grooved rods and bars with set screws. Do you plan to check all of them?

Servo motor mounts usually have a pivot point and some way to adjust how taught/loose the belt is. You can loosen the belt via the motor mount and then you can remove the belt. If you have a speed reducer pulley, that may need to be loosened as well.

I'm not positive but I believe that adjustment screw/mechanism allows matching the amplitude of the needle bar rocker frame movement to the feed dog movement. It makes sure the needle's position remains fixed inside the feed dog hole as they both move front to back. If the amplitudes don't match, there will be relative movement of the needle inside feed dog hole as they move.

Since your machine doesn't really behave at all the way it should in reverse, you're either using it wrong or something may be way out of adjustment, loose or broken. The Seiko STH-8BLD-3 manual will get you going on the right path. I highly recommend reading it carefully - it's one of the better manuals out there. First thing to make sure is that you don't turn the hand wheel backwards to make the reverse stitches - that's just not how it works but you would be in plentyful company if you tried that. Second thing to make sure is that the reverse lever has normal range of motion (isn't catching on anything) and that you depress the reverse lever all the way down and hold it there while sewing in reverse. Third thing to make sure is that you don't make any changes or loosen screws unless you really understand what they do. That screw in your picture is NOT where you adjust the reverse stitch length balance. Chapter 8-13 on page 23 of the manual shows how to adjust stitch length balance.

By coincidence, I came across a Pfaff 3334 subclass booklet in my stash of manuals yesterday. It won't help with fixing the the thread cutting knifes, but it relates to the machine in question. I scanned it in and made a text searchable PDF. It's surprisingly hard to turn scanned booklet spreads into a normal sequence of PDF pages! http://docs.uwe.net/Pfaff 3334 Subclass Patterns Reading.pdf (for reading online) http://docs.uwe.net/Pfaff 3334 Subclass Patterns booklet printing.pdf (For printing the booklet: print duplex on letter size paper, fold in half and staple)

Not complaining, just documenting facts. The seller may need the money to pay off the medical bills for back injuries sustained while trying to move the monster.

The Singer 97-10 with a winning auction bid of $367.09 is now available on Ebay for $3,589.49

You're gonna tell us what was wrong and how you fixed it, right?

The presser bar of the 45K5 does look like it would also accept regular presser feet with the flat mount point at the bottom of the presser bar. The roller foot appears to just clamp to the round portion of the presser bar above the flat mount point - at least that's what the pictures seem to indicate. Sometimes the different subclasses have only very minor differences with only very few parts swapped out.

Page 20 of the Pfaff 1245 manual has a dimensioned CAD drawing for the table cutouts, which is a reasonable starting point as well (alas, they tell you every dimension EXCEPT the actual main cutout size!) ba_1245_05-12_e.pdf

The Singer 45K came in both flatbed and cylinder arm versions. Lots of subclasses were made over time (Description of Singer 45K sublasses). Make sure the ones you're considering will fit your needs. Reading the Singer 45K manual (Flatbed) or Singer 45K manual (Cylinder Arm) ahead of time will help understand what you're getting yourself into.

Looks like the 45K5 was designed for roller feet which may be pricey (there's one on Ebay right now for $117 : http://r.ebay.com/AMAUJB ) I've not tried to install other feet on a 45K so I can't comment on that. I do know that 45K hooks are readily available from various sources, including me http://r.ebay.com/WCsheT

What you end up getting for the machine depends on a lot of factors (condition, accessories, location, shipping cost, market - is there a buyer ready, able, and willing at all?) Sometimes a perfectly good machine will not sell because everybody who wants one already has one. People who buy machines intended for resale generally pay much less than what you could potentially get from an end user. Another LW member managed to sell a pristine, like-new Durkopp Adler 204-64 a few years back for just over $2K, it appears. If you want more than $700 for yours, you'll have to step up your photography game. Blurry pictures do not help your case for getting top dollar for your machine.

The Singer 31-15 was not really designed to accommodate any roller feet, it seems. At least the parts manual for the Singer 31-15 doesn't show any roller feet options. Sometimes you get lucky and a part designed for another machine fits and actually works. I'm guessing that your big roller foot ends up being much taller than a regular foot, and the standard presser bar does not have enough of an adjustment range to accommodate the big roller foot. You may be out of luck making the big roller foot work with your existing presser bar, even though you can mount the roller foot. Perhaps that is also why the original roller foot you bought came with a special presser bar to make it work.

In my experience hauling a top-heavy sewing machine in a trailer is a bad idea. If the machine is not tied down inside the trailer it's a VERY bad idea. You're lucky the whole thing wasn't upside down when you got home after driving two hours.

An original Durkopp Adler 204 in good (as in "nice") condition both mechanically and cosmetically wouldn't leave Garden City for under $1500, but that's just me. Of course some people's definition of "good" is just few screws away from "for parts only". A picture or two sure would help a lot in determining potential value.

Some screw has probably worked itself loose over the past five months of regular use. Something is now slightly out of place and occasionally catching something else. You have to find out what it is and put it back in place and tighten it down. "Muscling through" is almost never a good idea if it's the machine itself that's causing the hang-up, as opposed to the material. Disconnect the motor belt and turn it over by hand (don't reconnect the motor until you have this figured out.) It's the only way in my experience to really feel the machine and find tight spots. When you find a tight spot or a hang-up, wiggle the handwheel while looking at every moving part to see if anything is out of place. There will likely be rub marks or scratches evident as well. Remove covers to see what's going on. Remove throat plate, take out the hook and see if it still happens. That'll take considerable time, but MUCH less time than shipping it off to Gregg to have him do essentially the same thing, or repair something once something actually breaks.

Having a dealer close-by who's personable, knowledgable and motivated is a big deal and worth a LOT all by itself. If you get good vibes from them, then the machine you're considering may be a perfect fit with great support. I personally really like the Juki LS-341 and LS-1341 class of machines and a well-done clone or re-badge is the prudent choice for many crafters. The same-factory-different-label cooperation between OEM and secondary custom branding is somewhat rare in the sewing machine world but it does happen. The Durkopp Adler and Global brands are one example. DA makes post bed machines at the Minerva plant in the Czech Republic. DA bought the Minerva plant from Global and made some cooperation agreement. All the machines come off the same assembly line, but the higher-end machines with more bells and buttons get the DA logo, the basic machines get the Global logo. Juki does operate factories in both Japan and China to my knowledge and who knows what goes on behind closed doors during the night shift.

It appears to be a Köhler 17-61 based on the info and pictures on this web page: http://www.naehmaschinenverzeichnis.de/verzeichnis-der-naehmaschinen/altenburg-köhler-textima/ The machine does have an optional walking foot mechanism that can be engaged and disengaged. That shaft across the back is there for that reason. Installing the walking foot and moving the screw indicated in the picture from the lower to upper position enables the walking foot. The walking foot installs on the front presser bar, but sits behind the needle. It's an unusual design and finding these specialty presser feet may be hard or impossible. Unless your machine comes with a box full of parts and feet, it may not be a practical candidate. Here's a picture with the optional walking foot installed:

I had a similar thing happen to my Adler 205-370 about a month ago, just a few octaves lower. Two days before I was to deliver a custom binding workstation I had built around the Adler, it developed a low-pitched groan when I turned it over by hand very slowly. Something was rubbing that shouldn't be rubbing and it was unacceptable. After oiling everything I could think of and a dozen more places with no improvement, I started disassembling things to see if the groan would stop at some point - it didn't. The machine was in pieces and so was I. The following day, in a last-ditch effort, I took the hand-wheel off and, by golly, the groan was gone! It was so well oiled that I could easily turn it over by grabbing the shaft itself. It turns out the needle position sensor mount was the root cause. I had added a washer because the screw that came with the adapter was a tiny bit too long. Alas, the washer pushed against the hand wheel instead of the shaft. The groan started days later when I went over all the screws one more time to make sure everything was nice and tight before delivery. This last tightening pushed the handwheel towards the housing and started to rub and groan. I changed the screw for the adapter, got rid of the washer and all's been well ever since. So the basic approach recommended above - to oil everything and then start removing things - is a good, methodical approach.

For local support and agents, you need to take a close look at Minerva Boskovice (http://www.minerva-boskovice.com/), right in your back yard. They produce for Durkopp Adler and Global. Seriously high-quality stuff.

I've come across the Strima website on a few occasions. They seem to have a good web presence and have a serious business going including their own house-brand TEXI. They're located in Poland, which is probably within day-trip distance from where you are. Shipping sewing machines is always risky. Sieck (http://www.sieck.de/) in Bayreuth, Germany may actually be closer to you - they also have nice used and new gear, including used original Pfaff 335 for 1500 Euro (http://www.sieck.de/maschinen/naehmaschinen-taschen-lederwaren-herstellung/armnaehmaschinen-dreifach-transport/details/7283/).