dikman

I had to look to find out what the heck a "Pulaski" is. Nice neat job, as for the bungee cord it's a simple effective solution without messing around with buckles. Once it loses its bungeeness it will be simple, and cheap, to replace.

Sam, you mentioned possibly a 441 clone, these are heavy duty machines and likely to be too much for what you intend sewing. With RockyAussies modified needle plate and feed dog they will go down to #138 thread but anything lighter than that could be problematic (one of the issues will be finding small enough needles for lighter thread). Something with 1/2" max. under the feet might be a better fit?

Thank you for the kind words, Bert, but my effort is pretty mediocre compared to what others are doing on here. I have a long way to go yet.

I might as well chime in. The "famous" Chinese shoe patcher is often known as a tinker's delight! They can be a useful machine but will likely require a bit of work to make it run smoothly. My suggestion, in your situation, is no. Importing from China, naturally I have no idea about the ease/difficulty in importing large items where you are but I considered importing a 441 clone head into Australia. While there are any number of dealers on Ali-express/Ali-baba who were happy to sell me a unit (at some good prices) it was a nightmare trying to work out how to do it, at every turn there were additional costs required here (shipping, port forwarding, brokers fees, import taxes plus some I've forgotten). The cost worked out the same as buying locally, which I did. Hopefully it won't be as bad for you (here we have taxes on taxes!!) but be thorough in your research. As for the Typical brand I came across it during my searching and it appeared to be a good brand. Good luck, and I hope it works out for you.

Steve, you're quite right, the reactions from people who have seen it range from impressed to awestruck!! The fact that holsters are uncommon here, let alone carved ones, probably has more to do with it than the quality of the workmanship. You're right in that to be period correct the belt loop should be sewn as a separate piece on the back, however for my needs I needed the holster to sit a bit lower, to make it easier to clear the holster when drawing an 8" barrel. Your idea of stitching the loop before gluing the liner had already occurred to me as it would be much neater than this effort. With the folded drop loop the loop part of the liner would have to be glued first, folded over and stitched to the holster and then the rest of the liner glued to the holster. It would be do-able but a bit tricky if the holster is formed with a curve first, but I think it's the way to go I'm still working on the design for the next two, I just scrapped the first drawing as it just didn't look right. Did you post any pics of your holsters?

Yep, it's very impressive when you sew through the max that you can squeeze under the feet, it treats it the same as the minimum thickness - no effort!

Rocky, it sounds like you're running a bit of a sideline, going into the accessory manufacturing business for 441 clones.

The best way to get an even coverage is with an airbrush (even the cheapies used for cake decorating or face/body painting) should work. Just saying.

Bladegrinder, it's a bit like comparing a small car to a muscle car - as you Yanks are fond of saying, there's nothing like cubic inches! As Dwight mentioned, get the modified needle pale and feed dog from RockyAussie on here, it will let you use from #138 thread up. In my opinion it should be the standard fitting on these machines as it makes them far more versatile.

Ok, now I get it.

Impressive effort for a "first-timer". A suggestion some one else made is to put a tennis ball under the foot pedal so if you accidentally press too hard there is some resistance.

Very clever, Chuck. A couple of questions, I assume the two long bolts are for height adjustment and the two pairs of bolts are for back/forth adjustment? How are the two pairs tightened as they appear to be in slots and I don't see any nuts, and how is the blade attached to the top plate? Edit:just noticed the two bolts on the back are for back/forth adjustment? But I still don't see how the two pairs of bolts are attached to the slotted pieces?

Neat idea, Frodo.

Thanks RR, that's $131 Aus at the moment, and likely to get worse! Like I said, it's a killer (not your fault, of course).

Hanzo, I figured you were going to do the pattern along the top too, I meant to also put in a faint line.

Do the same on the top part and then use your backgrounder to blend it all in. At least that way top and bottom will look the same. I'm sure it will look fine.

Those feet are edge-guide feet, they come in different widths designed to act as an edge guide to give a stitch line that is a fixed distance from the edge. In your first picture you can see drag marks next to the stitch line, caused by the guide part of the foot. It is spring-loaded so it can ride higher if the material is thinner than the depth of the guide. As for pulley reducers, if you're handy you can make your own (I've made several different types). There have been quite a few posts about it on here, basically a shaft, a couple of pulleys and a couple of bearings. On one of my machines I replaced the handwheel with a large pulley, made a speed reducer too and could crawl the needle at one stitch every 2 1/2 seconds (servo was a generic type, similar to yours). Incidentally, I've found with my servos that although the speed setting does reduce the top speed it also has the effect of reducing the "sensitivity" somewhat as the movement of the actuating arm now covers a reduced speed range - if that makes sense.

I agree, simplicity in electronics is always nice, particularly for people who aren't well-versed in the subject. I wonder, though, if being in France he will have the same problem I had - availability. Those analog speed control servos don't appear to be too difficult to get in the US but here in Australia they are not common and are expensive - if you can find one.

Have you tried reducing the overall speed in the servo menu? This should make it easier to control at slow speed, but to get accurate slow speed control you need to fit a speed reducer of some sort. Replacing the handwheel with a larger pulley, as toxo suggested, performs the same function as a speed reducer, I've done this on several machines. Your servo appears to be a fairly generic design, nothing special, but these really need some sort of mechanical speed reduction to get the control that most of us want for leatherwork. I'm surprised that the seller didn't suggest this.

There's not much of the original coating left on the base, the simplest (!) way would be to get rid of what's left (paint stripper/sanding), mask it off, apply a coat of primer and a final coat of your choice. Give it a few days to cure before using it. You could use epoxy if you want but it seems a bit over-the-top to me.

I had a couple of punches where the punched out wads were jamming so I opened out and smoothed the back end of the punch a bit with a carbide bit in a Dremel. I'm not sure if you can do that with a 2mm punch as it's pretty small?

The left roller has a slight rebate on the ends and the right roller has corresponding raised edges so it looks like it's designed to roll flanges on a fixed width of something?

I'm with kgg regarding the servo, fitting one is arguably THE best thing you can do. I had a clutch motor on my first machine and fitted a smaller pulley on the motor and experimented with speed reducers but could not control the thing! After that experience I didn't hesitate to buy a servo each time I bought another machine.

I'm trying to figure out what sort of adjustment that screw provides!