dikman

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!

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.