dikman

Simple and elegant.

Constab, I think you'd better go easy on the restorations, too much solvent sniffing!

They look great, Riem. You did very well with the HDPE, it's not as easy as you think to fuse it together and it burns pretty easily if overheated. If you can find someone with a lathe sometime they'll only need skimming to finish them off.

Always nice to see someone re-purposing old gear. When I've used those pulleys I had to drill and tap them for setscrews to tighten against the shaft. I also noticed that 120mm appears to be the largest most of those sellers have, once you start looking for bigger ones they're harder to find - and considerably dearer!

Wiz beat me to it. The way that machine works the thread is dragged under and around the bobbin during the stitch cycle and I doubt there is sufficient clearance within the bobbin assembly for thread that thick.

Just curious, what size thread are you using?

Thanks mate, that looks very useful, better than trying to find various washers etc with the correct radius.

I really like that approach, it looks very smooth and elegant.

Full marks for your perseverance!

That definitely has a knock!! Makes me itchy to pull it apart and find out what is knocking.

Not on a clicker but I have a VFD on my lathe and on my belt grinder. I replaced the single phase motors with three phase, running on our standard 230v single phase, and they work well.

Yep, done that too with a pulley off my old Honda Accord, worked well.

Same as I bought, works fine for my needs.

Nice to think that dealer was open enough to try out something he hadn't heard of, although I'm surprised he'd never heard of it before. And was prepared to help out.

Most of them are pretty much the same generic types as found on ebay and aliexpress. I bought two from aliexpress but had to make mounting brackets to fit my two machines. No big deal as all it needed was a bit of aluminium cut to shape and drilled. Mine have a slightly different shaped straight guide. If you pay the big money then I would expect them to be a straight bolt-on fit, if not you might as well save some money.

Do you know anything about the age and condition of them? I must admit though that I tend to agree with Constabulary (of course, I must admit to some bias as I have a Seiko.).

I would give this guy a wide berth!! He has no idea what he's talking about.

I didn't realise that you had one of these beasties too, Keith. You really like your 3D printer don't you! The small table is a great idea for one of these machines and yours looks very neat. Smartshop, those legs it comes with are probably great for a street-side repairman in Shanghai, but in general are pretty useless. Most users make up a wooden base to attach it to.

What Hockeymender said.

You have been a busy boy. You've got bobbin holders everywhere! That little table looks neat, is that 3D printed too?

As you discovered with the Techsew, a speed reducer is the answer. Either make your own or buy one. There are two main types for sale, the one on a "pedestal" mounting that screws underneath the table or the box type. The box type is the easiest to fit, just remove the motor, mount the reducer where the motor was and bolt the motor to the bottom of the reducer. Then it's just a matter of finding the correct length belts. You won't have to worry about what the numbers mean on the motor then.

I used a bracket screwed to the table, I had to loosen a screw to tilt back but it was no big deal.

Can anyone tell me anything about this? I was given some bottles of this stuff and I know it's old (probably between 30-50 years?) and I'm wondering what sort of dye it is - oil, spirit-based, what?

Anyone else notice they all look the same?

Balancing the two feet can be a bit fiddly as they are inter-dependent, which is obvious by looking at the linkages. I have an old casting 335 and normally can only get about 6mm under the feet, some models can give more, depending on the sub-class. I can get up to 10mm by mal-adjusting the feet and needle bar but then the feet won't touch the feed dog.