dikman

Whew! Anyhow, welcome to the forum RaSK. The only one of your questions I feel even remotely qualified on commenting on is #2. It seems to me you would be better off without the needle positioner as then you will decide where the needle stops. There should be a setting in the servo menu to disable it. If you want really slow speed then fit a speed reducer pulley, this will let you crawl the needle if necessary, the downside will be a loss of top speed but with leather this isn't usually a problem. I doubt if a "better" servo will help as a needle positioner is designed to stop either up or down when you stop, regardless of the servo type. I tried a positioner but didn't like it as it would sometimes put a stitch where I didn't want it (not good in leather!). #3 I'm not familiar with your machine but it sounds like you have too much spring tension on the presser foot? Many machines have an adjustment knob/wheel/screw on top to vary the tension.

................groan!

That's exactly what I was doing! Hence my Heath Robinson mod to swap pedals.

Yep, unless aluminium is anodised or clear-coated I've found the same thing. They look great doubleh, is the thick finger saddle any better/worse when it comes to comfort?

Shelf life? Having a Li-on battery I guess it's no different to any other re-chargeable thingy, so who knows. It has the LEDs on the bottom (most of them don't have this) so you can check the charge at any time, and if you have a 2 amp+ charger it shouldn't take long to re-charge it.

In answer to your question, no, 3D plastic feet would not last long!

Yes, there's not a lot, there is a button on the bottom that gives a slightly reduced pressure, so effectively there are two settings, but honestly I don't see it as being much of an issue. It isn't a replacement for a good airbrush/compressor setup and won't match that versatility, to me it's more of a convenience tool. As I said it saves me having to cart all my gear from another shed if all I want to do is spray leather.

The government realised that it was impractical for Australia Post to collect the GST for all the overseas goods that were coming in so it asked various overseas companies to do it for them - ebay, Paypal, Ali-express, Fed-ex etc - and they all agreed. Quite bizarre, I thought. Theoretically, any overseas company that sells you something is supposed to collect the GST, but other than the few big companies no-one is going to bother. This, by the way, all came about because Harvey Norman complained about the goods coming in that weren't being slugged GST, he said it wasn't a level playing field, even though most of what was coming wasn't sold in his stores anyway! Anyhow, back on topic, I decided I needed a larger cup for the airbrush, these are readily available on Ali-express. A 20cc and 40cc were going to cost me $11 shipped, but by searching a bit more I found I could get a pistol grip airbrush, with the two cups, for only $31 - so I've ordered another airbrush! That will make seven altogether. Oh, and this one included the GST.

I tried it out today on a bit of scrap leather, using an old Porter's black dye that I had. Coverage was very nice, very smooth and even although I had to apply several coats. The biggest problem is that the fluid cup doesn't hold much, so doing a large piece will be a pain! One good thing about the Chinese airbrushes, however, is that many of the parts for the various brushes appear to be interchangeable, and as the cup screws onto mine I should be able to buy a larger cup. I've seen them on Aliexpress and they're pretty cheap.

Thanks mate, a bit like Parkerising then, except it's black rather than the gunmetal colour I got. As I expected, it doesn't appear to be available here. No surprise there.

Toxo, I made something similar once, to use with bulk WD40, unfortunately the air kept slowly leaking out of the valve and I couldn't seem to stop it. Doc, if you look on youtube there are lots and lots of reviews/tests of the different types - some have slightly higher pressure (supposedly), at least one has a replaceable battery available, (I don't see me ever needing that much spraying time) but most run continuously when turned on. This doesn't seem to be as much of an issue as you'd think, according to users, but I wanted one that turns on when you press the airbrush trigger, i.e. on demand. If you don't want to buy off ebay/Ali-express you have a company over there called spraygunner.com which get good writeups. The airbrush itself doesn't look too bad, considering it's a China "cheapie", today I'll strip it and polish the needle and moving parts which should make it a bit smoother, as I can feel a very slight rubbing somewhere.

Sort of, it still makes it a bit more portable than lugging a compressor around. It won't replace a decent airbrush/compressor setup, of course, but I think for leatherwork, where fine detail isn't required it should be fine. None of the other reviews have mentioned any issues so I'm not too concerned, besides it operates at 3.7v, which is a single Li-on cell, so I figure if it does die there's a good chance I can fix it. One interesting thing, some time ago Ali-express agreed to collect the GST for our government on goods they sell (which I thought was a bit odd, them acting as tax collectors for the Australian government) and in fact that's what happened on a few purchases I made. This time, however, although the invoice included the GST I wasn't actually charged it. I wonder if that's normal for them now?

Good question. The common way that most of the restorers on youtube do it is to either heat them and drop them in oil or use the gunblue stuff that is used for cold-blueing on firearms. I'm interested if there's another way.

Re-charges via a USB port. This particular model has a USB-C connection on the bottom so can charge faster if you have a 5v/2 amp USB source (which I've just made for it). A guy on another forum just told me he has one and the battery died so he runs it off the USB cord. Testing by a reviewer showed it outputs about 21 psi and has a button on the bottom that reduces the output slightly, if needed This, by the way, is not mentioned in what passes for instructions. There is also a LED display on the bottom to indicate how much charge is left.

I wasn't sure where to put this so stuck it here. I just received my cordless airbrush, 12 days from ordering to delivery from China, pretty impressive. I want to experiment with applying dyes onto leather, and while I have several airbrushes, compressor etc it means dragging all the gear from one shed to another and back again. This is completely self-contained and obviously very portable. Reviews have generally been very good for this particular style of cordless brush (there are quite a few different styles) so I figured it was worth a try. A charge is supposed to last between 45-60 minutes, more than enough.

That foot pedal will be one-of-a-kind! Way over-the-top!

Some nice work there. If it was me, though, I would have made the handwheel bigger as it will help give better control and torque. How do you intend controlling the servo?

Very nice work. Somewhat better than my first effort. I notice that, like me, you haven't quite mastered the pear shading. I thought mine was ok - until I took a photo! It's not as easy as I thought, it requires a light touch. How about a bit of info on dye used and finishing? We like to know these things.

Thanks Viking, kind of you to say so. It does impress people when they see it, but that's because they don't understand the subtleties of carving leather so don't look too close! I must admit it was a lot of work but I found it very satisfying to make.

Hi Glyndon, sorry mate it's long gone. I realised I was accumulating too many machines so decided to stop looking and rationalise things. I've kept the ones that I'll actually use - flatbed, postbed, edge binder and, of course, the harness stitcher (should cover anything I'm likely to do). Glad you got it working, they're a good solid machine, and I admire you for being able to use the clutch motor, that was something that had me beat.

Thanks for that link, I was curious about it too. Very nice, but shipping would probably be a killer to Australia. As for re-tapping that thread, I thought of that too but you might need to go the next size up?

Good video, Brian, the only thing different I would have done is mount the speed control unit just underneath the table, rather than on the edge where it might catch on something. I was wondering what the baseplate was made of, that would make for a pretty heavy table!

There ya go! Guess it's true, great minds think alike.

Looks pretty good to me. If you hadn't seen the other one first you wouldn't be disappointed. One of the "complications" with metric screws is they have several different thread pitches they use.

I built my own table , a heavily modified "standard" table, and placed the lifter pedal on the left, as you say it feels more natural. But it was a lot of work! You can't just swap pedal positions because you'll need to make up new linkages for the lifter. Looking at the base of your machine, moving the upright towards the front and shifting the pedal assembly towards the back might make it more comfortable but I'm not sure if it would affect the overall balance of the machine on the base. Moving the head assembly is possible but you'll probably have to extend the belt slot and drill a new hole for the lifter chain, and it probably still won't be close enough for you.