TinkerTailor

I'll bet you the saddle that it is worth money. If it is valuable, I win and get the saddle, If not you win and get the saddle. Sound like a deal?

I gotta say, with those pulleys at the bottom, one would want to be aware of where you are resting your feet. No barefoot stitching allowed. Also never a bad idea to replace all the wires for a machine this old. Vibration can chafe old wires inside those metal conduits creating shorts. Its not that hard, and it sure beats lighting yerself up. Wire it with a grounded cord and attach the ground to the machine. Ungrounded old powertools are not a good idea. Remember that when this machine was made, they still thought electrocution was good for you and used it for medicine........ There are wax based liquid lubes still available for these old machines. I can't remember what the brands are but I know Wiz knows. Wizcraft, any input??

I burnt out the bearings in an almost new 120volt metal housing milwaulkee holeshooter 1/2 inch drill using it as a motor in a belt type setup. Cordless drills may have good bearings but they are frequently have a design bias for thrust loads and not side loads, this is because these are the types of loads a drill is designed for. The same thing happens when you try to use a drill press for milling, the side loads destroy the bearings. The fact that they are mounted directly into plastic does not help this. Adding a bearing on the other side of the pulley will mitigate most of this side load problem. You have just enough stub to get one on there, if you can find a way to build the arm to mount it. Judging by the fact that you can weld, this shouldn't be a problem. Didnt think about the breaking aspect of the treadmill motors, or the runaway situations....that must have been fun.

It actually looks like it has had several different machines mounted in it, judging by the holes in the table top and the repairs. If you do go with this machine, and not a walking foot, Stand will totally be usable. You can use it for a walking foot as shoepatcher has sugested. Most times due to shipping buying just a head is cheaper., You can get a new top with the proper holes and cutout for your machine for 100-150 bucks Most likely easier and much less hassle than trying to cut and drill a table yourself, unless you already got a woodshop. here: http://drdanessmh.com/klegstands.html and here: http://www.atlaslevy.com/TABLE-TOP-FOR-INDUSTRIAL-SEWING-MACHINES--Walking-foot_p_104.html Any of the machine suppliers advertising on this site will have decent pricing but most importantly service for the servo motor.

I really like this setup. It is the kind of thing i would come up with.. Not sure how long it will last, cordless drills are not usually built to be side loaded, so the belt tension is likely to burn up the bearings, however it was free. Keep your eye out for old treadmills. The motors are variable speed and have enough power to put the spring in the step of a 250lb fat lady. Should punch a little leather....others have had success with this route

You can thin NEW contact cement with the recommended thinner to a consistency that is sprayable. YOU CAN NOT THIN OLD BOOGERY CONTACT CEMENT. Once it starts to cure, it is done. You may get it to thin out, but it will not bond as well because it is half cured molecularly. That is why we use it, because once its cured and stuck, there is no going back and it ain't coming apart. Water based, obviously use water to thin, and only just enough to thin it. Too much thinner can mess up the glue, and the additional water content can mess with the leather. For thinning solvent types of cement, acetone is mentioned, as are toluene and MEK. Go with whatever the manufacturer recommends, though likely any of the 3 will work. Sometimes the MSDS sheet of a glue will list the active solvents. Generally it needs to be one of these. All of these are super dangerous solvents and will require very good ventilation and respiration. Be aware that electric motors can cause these types of solvent vapours to explode into an atmosphere fire. You do not want to have or see one of these. Spraying makes this MUCH worse. Always have a properly rated fire extinguisher handy when using solvent based products, especially if spraying. Be safe with solvents.....

That is asking alot of the scissors and also the hands of the cutter. Wiss makes some heavy duty scissors that will do the task. Expect to pay good money(50-100) for scissors made from good steel and up to the task you ask. Also expect to have to send them to someone to sharpen frequently if you are using them for hard leather. You may be able to get them sharp a few times at home, but scissors are special when sharpening is involved, and they are very easy to screw up. Good luck getting a nice cut with scissors in material that thick. A knife is easier to keep razor sharp and easier to use. Actually a knife is the only way to go for anything over 8oz total if working by hand. There are a couple machines that will do it, but cost more. The style of machines they use for cutting out boot soles and the like will do it. Machines like the Landis model 20 . The fastest and neatest is to set yourself up clicker dies and a press.

After you commented that, I found this: https://americancivilwarvoice.org/2014/06/03/the-sewing-machine-and-the-civil-war/ And here is the answer: According to sewing-machine historian GraceRogers Cooper, over the course of the struggle the Union army purchased 473,000 pairs of ‘machine sewed bootees’ since they lasted eight times longer than those sewn byhand. http://www.academia.edu/2646532/A_Nation_in_Extremity_Sewing_Machines_and_the_American_Civil_War It appears that the north used them extensively and the south couldn't get them. The north had 60 or so sewing machine makers at the outset of the war, the south had none. Only 2% of the existing southern uniforms were machine sewn, while in the north 71% of uniforms inspected in one study had machine sewing somewhere. Apparently it was Elias Howe equipped a whole regiment with his royalties.

Loctite makes their thread locker in a chap stick type dispenser that eliminates drips......Very handy for leather hardware stuff......Nail polish, glue, liquid thread lock all will stain a veg tan project if a stray drop ends up there. http://na.henkel-adhesives.com/loctite-sticks-6180.htm

Its under account settings not profile settings.

You should add this to your signature. It is perfect. I think this comes from stitching unglued stuff. In traditional stitching you follow the awl back through the hole with the needle, keeping the hole alignment intact. If the layers shift after you take the awl out, it is a bear to get the needle back through. With modern glues, tapes and techniques, most of us glue then stitch so the layer shift is not a problem. An old fabric type singer treadle machine, hand wheeled with an awl instead of the needle, no thread, and an edge guide makes a hell of a nice row of stitch holes in the tighter stitch lengths with up to 8 oz of leather.....you can even punch pieces separate and the holes line up when you put them together......

Unless you are picking it up as a parts machine for a complete skiver, turn around and walk away.......It was taken apart and ditched for a reason. That piece of turd will cost you hundreds if not thousands in parts and leather to test it. Probably some blood and tears as well. It is much more difficult rebuilding something if you haven't used one before. If you have no reference to how it is supposed to look, work, and sound, how will you know if it is right when you are done? Disassembled, unknown machines are a no-go until you are at least a level 5 machine wizard. Guys like cowboybob, gottaknow, singermania, wizcrafts, and many others on here, they are up in the level 8-9 range. The guy who designed the machine on paper with a pencil and ruler, he gets level 15. Now IF all the parts are there and you are mechanically inclined, you may be able to fix and restore it, but again, you may hit the wall because one little tiny part is not available anymore or costs 6-months beer budget.....and then it sits in the back of a warehouse collecting dust for the next sucker. Its not like there are 10 skiver rebuild videos on youtube to go by. However, There is no adventure in letting fear and common sense be your guide.

I should also note that if you do it right there is no duty on importing industrial sewing machines into Canada. These machines are used to make things, The government wants to foster the Canadian clothing and textiles industry, so it makes the machines for use in that industry are duty free. If you are importing chinese machines into Canada for resale, or you import it for personal use, it would be 17%+ duty i think. This applies to other things as well, but to me it is not worth doing the legwork for purchases under 500 bux.

Most other seikos are good machines, but they are definitely harder to find parts for and can be expensive. This one is different because it has been cloned. His is a japanese made 206-rb5 and all the feet for that machine will fit the seiko. His machine is the original that the consew was copied from. It is like a 206-RB5+. Open up pictures of both side by side if you need confirmation. Your original $350 bucks for the Seiko machine Uwe has is an amazingly great deal, only made possible by the horse trade department at leatherworker.net. I would trade him if i was you.

Happy canadian turkey hangover day..

I also wanted to pass on a story of a machine fight I have been dealing with for years. I have an old Volvo 242 from the 70's. It has a perfect body and interior When i bought it, it had low mileage and the schoolteacher told me it like to be driven with the choke half way on. The car ran good, and i assumed it was just a carb rebuild, so I bought it for really cheap. Shipped the carb away and had it rebuilt, same problems, ran crappy with the choke off. Went through the ignition system, it was all out of wack. Set the points and the mixture and the timing to factory specs and the car would not even run. Over the course of a year and one 20 dollar part after another I replaced the fuel lines, vacuum lines and basically the whole ignition system. Still runs like crap without the choke, and burns buckets of gas with it. I have gone through every dealer repair manual and 2 different other manuals trying to find the problem. Nothing. Funny thing is the engine has great compression. The other day noticed that there was what looked like another older timing mark on the crank pulley, way off from the white painted one that I (and the previous owner) had been using to time the engine. 2 days ago, I pulled the distributor out and it had been installed 1 tooth off into the motor and the whole car had been tuned to barely make it work that way. Someone even painted a new timing mark to go by. With the distributor in correctly, i set the engine to factory specs and it runs like a top..... I am the 3rd owner, the schoolteacher hated it and sold it off, I know she bought it running like crap. I wonder how long the original owner drove it that way as well. It only has 125000 miles. That is just broke in as old volvos go. You never know what someone has done to a machine in the past. And sometimes the root of the problem is only found after eliminating all the other obvious solutions.

I couldn't see in the photos which type of tensioner it was. When I first got my 441, I got the 2 upper tensions way out of wack with each other and it caused all sorts of issues with uneven stitching, it wasn't until I went back to square one with the tensions using a weight that I got it close enough to stitching nice that I was able to fine tune it. Hackish, don't get discouraged and don't let the machine beat you. It is just a machine, You can beat it. The other thing is, with any machine that is new to you, try not to switch more than one thing at a time. If you change thread and needle at the same time, and the problem goes away, you never know which one caused it. Go step by step. You have already eliminated some of the obvious and tried the standard fixes, so it must be either something you have not tried or a combination of things. First, since you played with the tension so much, back them all off and make them even but fairly loose. Then try to stitch. if its good, fine tune. If not, next change thread to a different style, if it gets better, keep the thread, if it does not change, go back to original thread. Then change the needle, same thing, if it gets better, keep it, if not go back to old needle. Next wrap the thread the other way around the top tensioner. Its probably wrong but maybe not. Then do it to the bottom. Then skip a tensioner. Then skip the other one. The steps above can be done in any order, the idea is to discover which part of the mechanism is the culprit by eliminating the all possiblilities one at a time,. If you ask around the correct way to thread a 441 style machine, there are a few methods out there, and most will work. Not all work for everybody in all situations but none are wrong. Your solution my be in adding an extra wrap on a tensioner or even skipping one altogether. You are manufacturing modern materials in a machine from way before the plastic age remember. It may be commonly used for this but never was specifically designed for your situation, and as such you may have to do things not in the way intended.

If i am correct, osborne uses an uncommon thread on their punch tubes, meaning a tap just does not exist. I have rebuilt threads with jb weld. Take a good punch tube , wipe it down with silicone grease(dielectric grease), Clean the threaded hole really well and then schmear a little jb weld into the hole and thread in the punch tube. With any luck you the silicone grease will not adhere to the jbweld, forming a release agent. This should allow you to spin the tube back out leaving repaired threads behind. If you only wait until the jbweld is 1/2 cured, the tube will come out easier. I have also tried Pam cooking spray and spray furniture wax/polish as release agents for jb weld and they also worked, though the oil not as well.

I have stuff waterproofed with both multiple coats of 50/50 resolene, as well as items that i have used snoseal. These are items that i use on my bicycle in Vancouver rain. The resolene items are totally waterproof, however they are a bit shiny. I like the snoseal better to feel and look at but it will show water droplets after a while in the rain. I reapply the snoseal every fall. I have also combined them. I have resolene-ed items to a lesser extent and then snoseal over top. Not as much soaks in but what does soak in just helps a little more. This method keeps the leather from looking plastic, which pure resolene has a tendency to If you do this, buff it good to take off any excess wax on top of the resolene. This may rub off or collect dirt. If i am out for a short trip, the water beads up and rolls off, if I am out for a while, the leather ends up looking like it has absorbed some water, but an hour inside and it is dry again. I found that a good warm room at 25-30 degrees Celsius will help the snoseal soak in. You want to apply it in until it stops soaking in. None of these items are even mildewy much less rotten after a few years of use.

Both of those machines have small bobbins, not going to get a whole bunch of thread on there in 207 size. They fit 50m in 45 tex if i read the charts right. If you really want to sew in mostly 207 i would look at a bigger bobbin machine. The second machine looks to be the same as a current production 1245 so shouldnt be too hard to sell. There is definately a few bucks more than you paid there, not sure it would add up to the new consew though. Btw, the artisan listed above is a clone of the pfaff 335. It may help you searching about that machine to know this. Several on here use pfaff 335's for various things. There are a few posts on what it can and can't do. It is listed and recommended for thread up to 138.

On the machine, there are 2 tensioners, one at the top of the machine and one lower down, On the lower one, is it a roller type or a tensioner with 2 discs? If it is the disc type, pull the thread on both sides firmly to make sure it is seated between the discs. As to the lube pot, how can you be sure it is smooth and not causing tension problems? If you are not using it, rethread the machine without it and see if the problem goes away. Another thing to note, If that machine was used for only 207 for 50 years or so, it is possible that some of the thread path parts are worn in and have grooves that are too small for a 346. There may be grooves in the tension disc or a groove in the takeup lever. Any of these will cause thread abrasion and increase the amount of fluff and fraying of thread as well as causing tension inconsistencies. This also affects bobbin tension adjusters, some people will keep more than one around for when they are switching thread size to eliminate this problem. Unfortunately for you, parts are not nearly as accessible as for say a modern juki walker. Have you thought of rebalancing the tension with a weight on the thread draped over a pencil or with a fish/luggage scale? There are tutorials to do this. You basically pull on the thread with the scale and try to get the top and the bottom to measure the same, then attempt sewing. There is also a way to use a weight on the end of the thread draped over a pencil, and you adjust the tension until the weight will just pull out the thread on the top and bottom. These methods should at least get your tensions close to even and then you can adjust for the material at hand. As to how much weight is good for a pull, someone else is going to have to pipe up because I cant remember. I think it was around 8 oz for my 441, i may be wrong.

I have never seen a singer that is a springer when you remove the cover plates. Cover plates are there to give access to the mechanicals when you need to adjust them, but keep your fingers out while you are sewing. If you look at machines from the 1800s most of the mechanicals are out in the open. As machines matured, they put covers over as much as they could for safety, cleanliness and appearance, but mostly for safety. The reason i posted the 141 manual is according to the lists, It has the same recommended usage by singer, and in the pictures of the machines appears they appear very similar. The feed may be different, but this should not effect weather you can take the covers off. Quite a bit of the lube points will be similar as well. They probably use the same bobbin and hook, Look through the 141 manual while you are staring at your machine, it will look very similar. It may help you understand what is going on with your machine. There are frequently no manuals for these old singers, as well as the fact that there are a bazillion different machines, it is common to not find anyone still alive that has worked on them. In addition, singer would slightly modify a machine and then release it as a new number. Sometimes they made SV models for special customers that became production machines. The SV thing is a great thread on here to open yer eyes to the oddities of singer. The bottom line is sometimes we have to use wrong but close or a combinations of wrong manuals to find the info we need on old machines. If you put the machine in a rubbermaid covered with a sheet, the parts cant go far......Wear safety glasses.....lol

Here is a chart that lists the 16 models and their features: http://needlebar.org/cm/displayimage.php?pid=65 The 141 looks really close, and may be the same with upgrades somewhere. It is drop feed, I am not sure if yours is too, but alot of other things look to be similar Here is the parts manual for it, it may help you figure out your machine. http://parts.singerco.com/IPpartCharts/16-137_141.pdf Singer 141 manual:http://www.opweb.de/en/model.php?id=13355

Sailrite machine may be the ticket.