Uwe

I found a nice Adler 267 Parts manual for your machine that shows how the safety clutch pieces fit together in great detail. So the main two clutch parts are the toothed outer "cup" (267150100) and the solid cylindrical part (0268150260) that fits inside the cup and is supposed to be able to rotate freely inside that cup. The only intended connections between the two are the little spring loaded balls. Perhaps the toothed outer cup and cylinder are ceased/glued together on their overlapping surface by some varnish left over from evaporated old oil. That edge looks little brown and wet in your picture, almost like it was rusted a little. Perhaps some moisture wicked into the crevice some time ago. I've had two sewing machines I worked on that had totally ceased together in certain parts due to oil that had evaporated into glue. The "high tech" solution both times was taking a hair dryer and warming up the parts well and gently applying twisting force until the varnish softened and the parts started moving again. Once they start moving, you can get some cleaning oil and it will absorb or dissolve/expel the varnish. So try using a hair dryer and warm up the whole clutch assembly - it may work and can't do much harm. Try not to get oil on the toothed timing belt - it's not supposed to be slipping and sliding. That screw and collar you pictured looks like it is not part of the clutch assembly but rather holds the shaft steady against the ball bearing. If the clutch is ceased together your timing may have slipped because the two set screws (9205102498) that hold the clutch to the hook drive shaft twisted a little. Often there's a groove in the shaft that one of the set screws goes into, but I'm not sure if your shaft has a groove. Without a groove the set screws can twist on the shaft given enough force. The set screws look like they have a flat tip, which indicates no groove (usually the set screws for a grove have a pointy tip, the ones that go on top of the shaft have a flat tip). If the clutch is truly and permanently ceased together you have two options: 1. Ignore the clutch and treat it like a solid, permanent connection between your timing belt and the hook drive shaft (Since you didn't know you had a clutch in the first place you may not miss it all that much.) Just go through the hook timing steps as if the clutch was in its proper engaged position (which it is as it appears). 2. Take a photo of the machine with some dried fish and a case of Tor's favorite beer or wine and try to lure him to your office.

The Singer 111G manual on page 12 has the same steps for changing stitch length as all the other 111 type machines I've come across - pressing a button in the machine bed and turning the hand wheel. Are you saying your machine does not have the button in the bed you press to change stitch length? It's seems very inconvenient having to get out the screw driver every time you need to change stitch length. The basic task is to shift/slide the two halves of the connector dovetail groove to change the offset between the two. A few photos for context and detail might really help in figuring this out.

If you're lucky enough to live in a metropolitan area with industrial sewing machine dealers, it's worthwhile checking them out. There's value in being able to see a machine in person and trying it out before you buy it. The Dallas area has Sunny Sewing and Dema Sewing Automation for example. No harm in spending an afternoon checking them out and see if you get good vibes from them. Even if you end up buying remotely from the LW vendors, it's good to have local resource for repairs and parts. I don't know much about the Dallas area companies, but they seem to have a reasonable web presence and an interesting selection of new and used industrial sewing machines.

I still think the safety clutch may be involved. Perhaps the safety clutch does not move easily like it should after the machines sitting for a long time. I checked the safety clutch operation on my Chandler/Adler 67. The safety clutch design on the 67 is different from that on the 267, but the concept is the same. Because I'm in major procrastination mode, I just finished making a little video that shows how my safety clutch works and how to verify hook timing on my machine: You should be able to disengage and re-engage the clutch similar to what I did. Hold the hook drive shaft carefully with a wrench (don't be scratching up that pristine piece of machinery!) and turn the hand wheel. It's didn't take all that much force on mine to pop the little ball in and out of its seat. The safety clutch is supposed to let go before something gets bent or damaged. If you can't move the safety clutch at all, it may have slipped and/or bound up for some reason. If the safety clutch is indeed engaged and working properly then you need to go through the hook timing procedure. That still wouldn't explain how you can slip/jump the timing this bad while sewing - the only way to do that is if the hook drive gears skipped a few teeth while sewing and that seems very unlikely.

Yup that's what it sounds like to me. The english in the manual is a bit rough in spots. (The German language manual for the Adler 267 isn't all that much better and even gets the image numbers wrong.) Image 15 in the back of the manual shows the clutch with the two screws "d" to adjust clutch release torque and the hole "n" (the manual calls this "n/15" in the text on page 13.) You use this hole "n" to check if the clutch is engaged or not. If it is engaged, meaning the two clutch disks are aligned, the hole labeled "n" should line up with a hole in the back disk of the clutch. You should be able to stick a little pin or hex wrench all the way through the clutch when the holes are aligned. Take the pin out again after you check! Image 21 in the back of the manual shows the shaft labelled "G". This shaft connects the clutch to the hook gear. If the clutch is disengaged, it should be fairly easy to hold the shaft "G" with your left hand fingers and turn the handwheel towards you until the spring-loaded balls inside the clutch pop back into their little dimples/holes to engage the clutch again. Once the clutch is engaged, It'll take a good amount of torque to make the clutch disengage again - I'm guessing you can't hold the shaft strong enough with just your fingers to make the clutch disengage.

I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I don't think any of these machines are made in America. It's more about American reseller working with the better of the Chinese factories for their customized products.

Nice little video! Your timing is off by more than just a little bit. The hook tip is nowhere near the needle when it needs to be - it's way late. Are you sure your safety clutch is engaged? It's hard for the timing to "jump" if you have gear driven hooks. It's fairly easy for the safety clutch to pop loose if you hit something hard or things get bound up due to thread knots. Page 7 in the service manual goes through the steps to set proper hook-to-needle timing. The first thing it tells you is to make sure your safety clutch is engaged. Page 13 talks about how to check and re-set the safety clutch. With a little luck, all you need to do is re-set the safety clutch again and you're back in business. Full DA 267 service manual can be viewed and downloaded here: http://www.manualslib.com/manual/461620/Duerkopp-Adler-267.html

Sun Protection Factor, got it.

The Cowboy 3200 may be fine for what you want to do. If anything, it may not like to sew with fine thread and small needles. It should be great for bags and belts. Get a flatbed attachment to do wallets. There's a new 3200 for sale near Cleveland in our for sale forum. Of course Cowboy Bob will be happy to set you up with a new one in Toledo.

I'd say it's a great machine for wallets, okay for bags (a cylinder arm might be better suited), and not ideal for belts (soft dress belts are okay, but hard veg tan leather belts may be problematic). The Chandler/Adler 67 is a very nice machine and parts/accessories/manuals are readily available. I'm very happy with mine (until I come across a minty Adler 267, haha.) The price seems right and it looks to be in reasonably nice condition. You'd probably pay considerably more if the machine actually said "Adler" on the front (it should say Adler on the back name plate). It's the same thing under the hood - they were made by Adler and then imported and re-badged by Chandler, thus forever lowering resale value and creating relative bargains for folks who are not obsessed with name badges.

I once found a handy bobbin reference chart (See attached file) Comparing your bobbin's measurements to the chart should allow to determine which bobbin style to order. At least the manual tells you the take-up lever stroke with 1/10th millimeter precision, lol, which seems like super useless info compared to bobbin size. Some thread suppliers also have a bobbin reference. The Thread Exchange has a bobbin reference chart for pre-wound bobbins - the dimensions should be very close to the real bobbins. Here's the bobbin style chart which you can print to scale and then just lay your bobbin on it to find your bobbin style: Bobbin Selection Information.pdf

Upon further review it turns out my reference manual contained an error and I was adjusting the hook timing very precisely using the wrong information! After adjusting the hook timing using correct information, buttery smoothness ensued. I had printed out page 12 from the US Navy manual from Keystone Sewing manual some time ago as a reference and never really questioned or cross-referenced the information on it. Alas, it turned out to be a bad reference in one tiny but important aspect. The Keystone manual page states twice that the needle bar should be raised "three sixteenth of an inch" from the bottom when aligning the hook. After doing further research it turns out that just about all other manuals and resources require the bar be raised by exactly half that amount - 3/32" - to set proper hook timing. This made all the difference in the world for my Consew 225 hook timing. Having a nice, clear PDF manual created for military use seemed like a good idea at the time. Most sewing machine techs probably have that 3/32" number burned into their brains and never refer to a manual for it. Doing it "by the book" tripped me up. Lesson learned: make sure the book you're using is a good one. Here's a picture of the Keystone manual page in question:

I installed a new Hirose hook in my Consew 225 and went through the Navy Manual hook adjustment and timing procedure several times just to learn, practice and get as precise as possible. While the hook-to-needle timing seems very accurate and the machine makes a nice stitch something's not quite right. There's a thread popping sound with every stitch. I investigated and found what seems to me like the thread getting pulled a little too tight and too early. The thread gets pulled between the bobbin basket and the race for a brief moment. It almost seems like the pull-up level is a tiny bit ahead of everything else. I've checked my threading several times, too. I'm attaching a little video that will hopefully show what I'm talking about. I'm not sure how to resolve the issue. Perhaps one of you sewing machine whisperers have seen this before and will just know what to do. Any help is appreciated. Here's the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOo80Eenvuw

I finally finished fine-tuning the design of the table attachment for my Pfaff 335 and I wanted to share some pictures here:

That is one beautiful looking machine - congratulation on finding such a pristine example! Nice setup with the new servo motor!

If the leather is thin/soft enough and the workpiece suitably big, a post bed two-needle walking foot machine might do a nice job for a lap seam on a bag. Apparently not many leather workers use post bed machines due to needle and thread size limitations. If you have $3,400 to spare, there's a nice Pfaff 1296 post bed machine for sale on my local craigslist. The french seam approach shown in the video does not really solve the problem of how to sew a three-dimensional piece on a machine. Flat pieces like the ones shown in the video above are comparatively easy to do in both lap and french seams. French seam on a bag seems impossible unless you can turn the bag inside-out, which is not an option for stiff bridle leather.

A shoe patcher style cylinder arm machine (e.g. Adler 30-70 or Singer 29-4, etc.) will happily sew in any direction using a 360 degree swivel head without having to turn the workpiece. It's an option but it'll be tricky to do a double line of stitches perfectly aligned. If the leather is soft enough and the bag big enough, like in your photo, you can just fold/squeeze/wrestle the piece through a normal walking-foot twin needle flatbed machine, I suppose. Glueing the lap seam before sewing may be less aggravating but more time consuming. I was admiring a Brooks Soho bag at a store recently. This bag has multiple lap seams and uses VERY stiff bridle leather. It's probably sewn by hand but I'm not certain. I am fairly certain that Brooks does NOT wrestle these pieces through a regular sewing machine, the leather is absolutely pristine on the finished bag. I'm not aware of a practical way to sew a lap seam on a stiff, cylindrical piece lengthwise unless you have a special machine that can sew in the direction of the cylinder arm, or by hand, as ENC mentioned before.

Yep, I added the little spring to push up the lever when not in use, otherwise gravity makes it ride along with the moving presser foot and the whole linkage mechanism bounces as you sew. Post some before and after pictures when you're done with your conversion!

Ah, the foot foot lift, not the knee foot lift, lol! So you're talking about the configuration on page 11 of the illustrated parts manual. Is that what your machine has or do you want to convert your machine from knee to a foot operated foot lift? It seems like it would be fairly easy to convert a knee lever setup by attaching a pedal via rod/chain/cable to the end of the long pull-down lever. I just finished prototyping a conversion of my Consew 225 to a foot pedal operated foot lift (fully functional but not pretty yet) It's conceptually the same arrangement as your 1245, except your knee lever is already a pull-down mechanism, making a conversion even easier.

Sewingonline.co.uk sells a service manual that may be the right vintage, but it's hard to tell for sure http://sewingonline.co.uk/library/pfaff-service-245-to-1246.html I'm guessing you already have the user manual: http://www.bedienungsanleitu.ng/pfaff/1245/anleitung (it does have some pictures of the back of the machine) The illustrated parts list shows the presser foot lift parts on page 38: http://hensewfiles.com/PDFs/Pfaff%201245%20old%20casting.pdf Two detailed pics of the back that show the foot lift levers:

Henry Ford once said: "If you need a machine and don’t buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don’t have it." It sounds like you already made up your mind as to what machine you will buy. It may not be the machine you need in our collective opinion, but it's all part of the learning process.

I once made a little video sewing some samples of thick bridle and vegtan leather with a special ridged presser foot, using 415 thread and a size 27 needle. You can see the video here:

I use either 200Nm/25 or 250Nm/27 size needles with my 415 thread from The Thread Exchange , depending on the presser foot and material I sew with. I'm pretty sure this particular sample was sewn with a size 25 needle.

Another photo of the size 415 bonded polyester thread stitch line:

I decided to actually measure a stitchline I made with size 415 bonded polyester on my Adler 205. In real life, the 415 thread is indeed very close to 1mm in thickness. If it's the visual you're going for, the size 415 might be all you need. The 441 and Adler 205 specs are similar, so a 441 might be able to handle 415 thread well enough if you sew slowly.