dikman

Won't poking a traditional diamond-shaped awl through the round hole help to give you the effect you want?

Mike beat me to it, I pre-punch my holes using a sewing machine (gives me even spacing) and then use an awl to give the nice diamond shape to the holes. I also do as TomE said and pull the thread back towards me to reduce the possibility of piercing the thread already in the hole (I learned that the hard way!!!).

I haven't done much with mine but the intention was to use #277 (heaviest thread I could find here) on holsters, but the beauty of the narrow plate set is it also sews #138 just fine. Not bad for a big lump of a machine like the 4500! I have other machines for #69 thread.

I bought the narrow plate set from RockyAussie and haven't seen any need to take them off, they work well for everything I'm likely to do.

It's easy to get carried away with shiny new toys!

You may have a problem doing this, if I remember correctly on these models the end bearing is actually part of the handwheel, unlike most models where the bearing is fitted into the main body casting.

On my list of stuff when I'm next near the plastics shop. Tried some aluminium, it cut through the powdercoating and while it etched the ally it wouldn't cut very deep (also what I expected). Lots of other materials to experiment with.

I made a maker's stamp using jarrah, a dense Australian hardwood. Lots of charring, smoke and smell! It actually worked, inasmuch as the fine detail was there but I overlooked the fact that structurally the wood is very delicate and the lettering fell apart as soon as I touched it. Next was some Zenolite, this is a hard perspex with a thick coloured acrylic coating in this case white. It worked beautifully while engraving the white coating but once it burned through that and into the clear perspex it got interesting. The laser went through the perspex and started burning into the wood layer underneath. I had read that it won't cut clear perspex so this just confirmed it. The smell was not good even though I had a fan blowing over it next to an open door. I have an old kitchen rangehood that I'll rig up as an exhaust fan as in wet weather I can't keep the door open. All good fun.

Geez, you're becoming paranoid about the machine! I haven't read too many reports of people having to replace busted bits on these machines (actually, I can't think of any off-hand).

I bought 6 extra ones - then found the 6 I already had in another draw! Oil, you can either get the Lillywhite oil or just get some light hydraulic oil (ISO 32), it's basically the same stuff.

Very nice work, Tim, those big pulleys should give very slow speed! Scott, if you've got a a butcher block that thick then by all means give it a try (but I would still put the angle iron underneath).

Started playing with the engraver today, I was printing a test grid on 10mm plywood and thought it was producing a lot of smoke so stopped it and found a few holes burnt through!! Luckily I'd put a sheet of steel on the table first and this was a bit scorched! I also tried a piece of aluminium, it engraved ok but I don't think it will cut through (doesn't matter anyway, engraving only is fine). I'm going to try and cut a maker's stamp, maybe out of hardwood first, to see how it goes (lots of smoke ahead!). I bought a cheap Toshiba i5 laptop some time ago and it's perfect for this, I can leave it down in the shed with the engraver.

A good plywood should be stronger (particularly if you laminate a couple of layers) and I agree with kgg about using metal angle iron underneath to give additional support, given the weight of the head unit. I used the same idea on one of my tables.

Looks good to me! You did a nice job on the rose.

Audio on that video is shocking!!!! They must have some pretty impressive circuitry in the controller to do that and I'm guessing it's got a hefty price tag.

I'm sure you'll love it! The class 4 machines are built like tanks, are almost bulletproof and will sew through almost anything - but they are quite capable of breaking these heavy needles (so don't force thick items through them!!).

Not just America, my friend.

In that case from what I've read on here over the years either dealer should be fine. As JLS said to all intents and purposes they are the same machine.

If it was me I'd clean off as much grease as I could (at least it probably kept things from rusting!) and try and get some oil into the linkages. I doubt if grease would get into all the linkage pivot points as well as a light sewing machine oil could. There's a reason they put those little oil holes on some of the linkages. As for the thread . Perhaps the upholstery company needed a lubricated thread for something they were sewing? If you don't like it just replace the thread, not many on here use (or need) a lubricated thread.

My take is it comes down to price and what is the best value, i.e. do you get any extra goodies thrown in? Either of those will do the same job.

"Reverse cross-draw?" In other words, a canted left-side holster. Good work, though.

Considering it only happens occasionally and your stitching is normally ok that suggests that there's nothing wrong with the way you've threaded it. The only thing I can think of is the check spring sticking in the up position, which would allow slack thread to occur - but I can't see how it would only happen occasionally.

PEU, ignore what I said about the tension assemblies, I got confused (getting old, I guess). I had a look at my 4500 and the assemblies are pretty much like yours in their layout. Varying the number of turns around the last tensioner probably won't help as for some reason you're obviously suddenly getting a lot of slack in the thread between the tensioner and the needle and as the takeup arm comes down that releases the thread around the tensioner, but I can't visualise why this should happen. Does this happen during a stitch run and nothing changes during that run? Stopping or turning or doing something different? The check spring isn't sticking? I'm not trying to be insulting here, just trying to understand at exactly what point it happens. It's hard trying to diagnose things when you're not there at the time.

A bigger hammer!! Just joking, looks like a reasonable tool kit, one thing I find indispensable is one of those head magnifiers - but that's 'cos I'm older than you! Congratulations on the job.

Interesting arrangement of the various tensioners. It looks to me as if tensioners 2 and 3 are in the wrong positions, I would have expected the final tensioner (#3) to have the two tension discs, as it stands now there is nothing to actually grip the thread and stop it coming off the spool if any slack develops as the takeup arm moves up and down.