dikman

Not really, but some subjects come up quite regularly (and this is one of them). Generally, with a heavy duty machine it will be almost impossible to stop getting marks of some sort, it's the nature of the beast. Even light/medium duty machines will leave marks on veg-tan. If you try to minimise the marks by reducing tension/pressure settings then you soon reach a point where the leather won't feed properly or starts lifting as the needle comes up, which can then cause missed stitches etc. Virtually every holster/belt that I've seen that has been made on a heavy-duty machine has had feed marks.

Fitting that old hand winder was brilliant! It's got me thinking......

If the recipient only wants a machine that they can just use and not worry about too much then I wouldn't consider giving the second one. It could be a simple problem, but then I'd have to ask why hasn't the seller fixed it. Unless you know something about industrial machines then buying one with an advertised problem could be an expensive mistake. If the price is right and you're prepared to spend time on it then it could be a good deal. Buying the two, as Uwe suggested, isn't a bad idea as you'd then have a working one to compare the non-working one with.

If it hasn't been repainted then it's in remarkably good condition. Probably the best thing is to get the owner to do a couple of longish runs on it and listen for any odd noises and make sure the stitches are nice and even. Price-wise it's Au$870, which is pretty good here (I paid a LOT less for mine, but I was lucky!). One possible way to look for wear is to remove the two thread tension discs and look for wear lines where the thread has worn a path in the metal. Of course, if they've been replaced then this won't apply, but it's pretty unusual to have to replace these unless it's had very heavy usage. I'm very happy with my Seiko, they're great machines and as mentioned feet, bobbins etc shouldn't be hard to find.

Nice. I like it. I think I'd re-route that cable, though, just in case. It should be ok, but.......

For anyone who might be interested, I applied some Light Brown then wiped off. The lighter colour I wiped off straight away, the darker one I waited a few seconds. I then wiped over with some alcohol to remove as much as possible. Looks like it has possibilities.

As is often the case there is always more than one way to achieve something. I've found that I often change the order that I make a leather item with, depending on what I'm making and what I want to achieve. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so good.

I'll have to experiment with colouring some stag as I really like that look.

Chris, are you just referring to clay shooting? From what I've seen (don't do it myself) competition shooters here in Oz usually appear to wear a vest with big pockets to hold their shells. Cowboy shooting is quite different, it is a requirement to use a cartridge belt (or bandoleer) as the ability to reload fast is the order of the day. It is also in keeping with how guns were used in The Old West (or at least the perception).

Now that is nice! What I would call understated elegance. Not having any border decorations really makes the carving stand out. I like the grips on the gun, they look a bit antiqued?

The "single row" bit seems to rule out double-stacking. If not for this I think it could work if there was a gap between each double stack, although it might be a bit of a challenge to actually make! As for the tilting part, Red Cent has posted a solution to this somewhere on here which effectively angles the loops out slightly, and he has had it confirmed that it doesn't breach any rules.

Excellent! Thanks gr8legs. Perhaps if you post all the files in the 3d printer section, as anyone looking is likely to go there first? As for PLA, I've been surprised just how tough it is.

Thanks Uwe. I just downloaded 123D, it's apparently not supported any more by Autodesk, but that doesn't matter for my needs. I found some tutorials on youtube and it looks pretty good as the learning curve doesn't seem too bad. If this isn't adequate I'll give Fusion a try.

Looks like it's "double-stacked" in the 3rd and 4th pics. That's an interesting idea, I'm trying to get my head around it and wondering how (or if) it would work for CAS.

Nice job! Good to see you've been doing your homework before jumping in. Fitting the smaller/larger pulleys is actually a great way to reduce the speed of the machine, and if you fit a reducer later it will just crawl along!! As for the pot control, it shouldn't be too hard to fabricate a suitable conventional foot control pedal? Any chance you might post the files for those pulleys? I tend to collect useful-looking files, just-in-case .

Very nice! Out of curiosity I looked them up here in Oz but no prices listed, which generally means they scare people off!! I found a 2-year old unit (24) for $22,000!!!!!!! I doubt if I could ever make and sell enough items to pay for it, let alone turn a profit!

I think for this to work the tensioner needs to have a fixed adjustment, for instance a sliding tensioner fitted with a screw adjuster to keep constant tension on the belt. Perhaps not as convenient as a spring loaded one but it would still allow slackening off the belt without moving the reducer or motor assembly.

Don, I tried that with one of my tables where I swapped machines around but found it wasn't very successful. It looked like it should work but I couldn't get rid of "belt slap" so I gave up on the idea. I suspect that it was caused by having a very small pulley on the motor.

You're right, Uwe, those instructions are particularly bad (even for a Chinese translation!). Yep, according to "the book" 500 rpm is the slowest it can be set. What's worse though is that you can't disable the needle positioner!! That is particularly poor design. The chances are that adding a speed reducer will throw the needle positioner out-of-wack, so to speak (it does on my particular servos). Best bet, as Don said, is a small motor pulley and replace the handwheel with a much larger pulley. This will give much lower speed, increased torque and shouldn't upset the needle positioner.

Yes. Now that you understand all about needles it's time to get stuck into thread sizing!

From Wiki - " The advantages of a brushless motor over brushed motors are high power to weight ratio, high speed, and electronic control". Which means they should be a bit more efficient than a brush motor, but honestly I doubt if, in the case of our needs, we would notice any difference. The main advantage I can see is that there are no brushes to wear out (but again, for most of us I doubt if that's likely to be a problem). As for "braking action" I doubt if they'll stop any quicker than the common brush motors many are using now - at least not enough that we're likely to notice it. Only reason I could see to change is if you wanted the "latest and greatest" , but I would also assume that they would come at a premium cost.

You did well on those horse rugs, that first one in particular looked a mess! Not sure that I'd be interested in trying to repair something like that! Yep, those old Seikos are nice, well made and if looked after will probably still be working into the next generation (I'm sure there will always be someone who appreciates old machinery).

The 335's are considered to be a very good machine for their class. Like most of them I see that it is setup with a binder, and while you can sew normally with the binder feet you will probably need to replace them with "standard" feet. By the way, I just read your OP a bit more carefully, and as Brian pointed out if you want to sew 12 mm you may need to go bigger. The 335 is designed to max out at 3/8"/10 mm under the feet. Depending on the leather you may squeeze 12 mm under it.

The Cowboy dealers here also have some slightly lighter duty machines (3200, for example) that would probably be better suited to what you're doing and are, I think, within the price range you're looking at. It would have the advantage of being new and come with a servo. Steve's Industrial Leather Sewing is also located in Qld, so could be handy for you.

I couldn't find a huge amount of info on it but the specs I did find indicate it's pretty close to a 441-type machine - which is heavy duty! It might be a bit too much for what you're doing. You didn't mention what size thread you're using. The RRP of $8700 is really pretty irrelevant in this case, as it's only worth what someone is prepared to pay, and considering a new Cowboy 4500 is about $4500 here in Oz if he hasn't sold it in 3 months then it's obvious that he's asking too much. It's the sort of machine I'd like, but not at that price. Plus it's got a clutch motor (!) which to me is a negative factor (as in more expense to fit a servo).