DrmCa

In previous life (in Europe) I used natural latex glue where latex was simply dissolved in distilled gasoline. It worked great: held the pieces together and could be removed from gloss leather by rubbing with the fingers. Here in Canada I tried Elmer's "rubber cement" and that clearly was not the same thing: It remained tacky after drying. Two scrap pieces that I glued together can be still separated and would stick together after a couple weeks. Visually the "old" glue I was used to was clear, while Elmer's was foggy. And the smell was not exactly of gasoline. What brand of genuine natural latex glue can be used on leather? There is always an option of ordering a pillow filled with shredded natural latex and dissolving it in gas, but that is messy.

From what I could find on the web, it must be slightly over size 400, but I am not sure which size exactly. 415? Or is it actually a 0.9mm thread in size 400? It is hard to measure correctly as the caliper would compress it. Would that be a proper thread for the holsters? And the machine part of the question: the specifications for Juki 441 say it takes up to size 28 needle. Do the clones take size 28? I looked at Tecksew 5100 and it says size 27. Is it a 441 clone and will size 27 needle work with 415 thread? Picture is of the thread I am talking about. It is 3 strand non-bonded nylon sold for saddle and harness repair.

What type of leather are you planning to use in the machine? You mentioned holsters. To stitch the holsters, you will need a heavy duty machine. Certainly not a household machine you can find at Goodwill store, even if it was cast iron. The members here will correct me if I am wrong: from what I know holsters can be made on Union Lockstitch or at least Juki 441 clones.

I would buy a good used cylinder arm machine instead, but it's just me. Cylinder arm is miles ahead in comfort. With a flat bed you are thinking where to keep your hands half of the time. And the used machine is 1/2-1/3 the price of a new one. Just get it from a dealer who can fix and tune the machine to your requirements of material thickness/needle/thread combination. This is my story: I tried stitching light upholstery leather on a flat bed single needle machine in my sig using teflon and roller feet. It was nothing but royal PITA. Ended up stitching on a hand cranked and hating the craft. Since I bought cylinder arm the things changed as stitching is joy.

Wow, professional work! Lots of skiving?

Was killing 15 min of time at the Thrift store where I never go and after looking at the old garbage they had, finally stopped at the rack with the purses and thought: What the heck, they might have something that I could deconstruct for the learning purposes. So I shuffled through a few old purses and saw this. Both purses are very high quality leather and worksmanship. Even just looking at the pictures of the orange purse I can feel soft and warm strong leather it is made of. The large orange one is made in Colombia by Queros and the buff/sand one is Bravo Browns. For $6 and $5 I could not let this steal of a deal to pass and now I am a happy owner of the both. Lots to learn from how these are made.

The binocular was a present to my son. It is a nice piece of Russian optics, but like everything from Russia it came in a mediocre cheap vinil pouch. I could not stand the sight of that cheap vinil and made this.

To make these I used 3M 90 spray adhesive to glue 1/4" foam to the leather of the crown. That makes the crown just rigid enough to still turn the hat inside out after attaching the lining. The peak is made with 1/8" crafts foam sheet also glued with 3M 90.

When I was buying Pfaff 335 a month ago the dealer had that same Adler too (but with a knee press which I can't stand) and both machines were offered for just over $900 Canadian, which is roughly US$800. That includes the K legs and a table. Servo would be extra CDN$130. Pfaff I bought was hardly ever used. Canadian prices on everything are higher than in the US, so you should have lots of room to bargain.

Konowalia, very sweet and practical design too. Choice of leather is in very good taste IMO. Can you post a picture of the inside?

Did anyone buy their (Thread Exchange) 50lb or 100lb deals?

Used to get bonded nylons from Thread Exchange a few years back, but did not shop at them for some time. It looks like they jacked up the prices quite a bit. Their bonded nylon 8 oz cones used to be in the neighbourhood of $5-10, now they are over $20. They have a variety, no doubt, but are there other mail order thread stores that are not necessarily on the first couple pages of Google that you know of?

Thank you for all the info posted above. Boy, am I glad that I chose Pfaff 335 over Adler 69! And I was thinking of going back and trading them to have a larger handwheel that Adler has over Pfaff. Won't do that now.

Looking at the old image, it seems that Leica rolled down the edges around the studs. I wonder if they wrapped with moist leather to be able to do that and let it dry.

+1 for manufactured leather. My wife thought she was given a genuine leather purse for a present right until it melted on one summer 100+ degree day and smeared the other purses on the closet shelf with black plastic.

If by "needle position" they mean every time you take your foot off the pedal and stop the motor, it will raise the needle to the TDC, then I would be careful. This is a great feature for sewing knit textiles on a coverstitch machine with automatic thread trimmer, but for making turns on leather you want the needle to stay down. With my "dumb" motor the needle is down in 50% cases and in other 50% cases I just give it a little more kick or turn the wheel by hand to lower the needle into leather and make a turn. See maybe you can set up those motors to leave the needle always down, maybe they can do that too. The seller should be able to tell you if that is possible.

I am almost 100% sure that you will not be able to stitch a total of 8mm veg tan on a clone of Pfaff 335.

All of my old textile sewing machines have the Organ needles in them. Now that I have Pfaff 335 I am wondering if these needles thread hole is the largest, allowing me to use the largest thread for the needle size. Does anyone know if there is any variance in the hole sizes among those manufacturers?

If this happened to me, I would go back to the standard foot set and check slowly turning the wheel by hand if the machine stitches. If it does, then something in the binder set caused the needle to break. Believe you or not, I could have easily broke a needle after installing the last welting foot set from eBay's Jimtally, as it had a rock chip stuck in the inside foot's needle hole. Turning the machine by hand I felt that it stopped as soon as the needle was level with the inside foot.

Jackie, Checked your catalogue and could not find this style of eyelets in 3/16" diameter. I use them on the purse straps as in this thread http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=64400&hl= and need them in solid brass nickel plated. Any chance you could get those?

I too have a dial motor. It runs Pfaff 335 at the lowest speed with a small pulley and I can do single stitches.

Love the bag and chair!

I did see someone being pushy in that thread and id did not sound right. But deleting the thread for that raises eyebrows. In other words, if someone bets their revenue on a forum thread, they have a bigger issue than honest opinions.

Great! I was contemplating making one for myself and this is going to be an inspiration. Any chance we can see the cases in action, i.e. with the glasses inside?

Thank you! Do you mean die in a sense as for a press? Than no, they were simply cut out with scissors based on the pattern that my wife designed and adjusted several times until the good fit was achieved. We make those patterns out of the dollar store "For Sale" signs, then transfer to leather with a pen and then out comes a pair of TiN coated scissors.