dikman

I finally found an arbor press - 2 ton! Son-in-law asked me to go with him to pick up some tools from a deceased estate - bench mount belt sander, drill press, small lathe, scroll saw - 1 hour trip. While there I asked the guy what else had for sale, he showed me an old grinder (English, solid, but it sounded like it had dry bearings) and an arbor press. I took one look, said how much, $50 and I said sold!! I've been looking for one of these for ages but have never seen a 2 tonner, they're usually 1 ton. And it's bloody heavy!!!!!!!

Another + for the riveting. That is going to be a tricky thing to sew and will be fiddly to do. If you're going to be "mass-producing" them you want it to be simple and quick.

Now that is an interesting looking machine, appears to have some sort of home-made fitting on the left?

Great buy! As NCArcher said, they don't seem to come up too often. I recall one for sale here over a year ago and they wanted double that price!!!

That lathe should be quite useful. I have a "medium" sized metal lathe (I'm sometimes surprised how useful it is!) and bought one of those generic Chinese "mini" lathes off ebay. A small lathe is a very handy tool.

Like anything, it's only worth what someone is prepared to pay. I'm not familiar with those machines, but for something that old it seems like a lot to me. If you particularly want it, then buy it, me, I wouldn't. I once came across a similar harness machine (Adler, I think?) head only and the guy wanted about $700. It was old, knocked about and needed a bit of work, which I pointed out. He wouldn't budge on price so I walked, I suspect he still has it.

Good luck on importing a sewing machine at 25% of the dealer's price. It's one thing to buy smallish items from China but it's a whole new level when you talk about larger/heavier goods. Guntechholsters, given that you have a heavy duty machine the logical choice would be an upholstery class machine, as Wiz mentioned. A cylinder arm would be nice, if you can find one, but a flat bed would probably be adequate. There should be plenty of old used machines around - Singer, Pfaff, Durkop-Adler, Consew, Seiko etc. - that should do what you want.

What's the little lathe on the left?

G'day Doug, you've found the best site, bar none, when it comes to leatherworking. Just be careful, if you get the sewing machine bug there's no cure.

" says the 18 is too small and will scratch". That's an odd thing to say, scratch what? I've used size 16 with #69 thread with no problems, but 21-22 is way to big. As Tom said the materials being used can also affect the choice of needle. Sounds like a private sale?

This has got me thinking that maybe I should change it back to a binding machine.

Which servo do you have? You should be able to change the parameters and reduce the top speed and the startup speed. I recently got my Pfaff 335 working again, I fitted the servo (cheap $100 unit off ebay) to the top of the table and replaced the handwheel with a large pulley, then reduced the top speed and startup speed parameters and it goes nice and slow now.

What type of holster are you going to make, (modern) pancake or Western? Based on my limited experience, and the knowledge I've gleaned on here, you might get away with the 26 for pancake holsters but for Western holsters you will need a class 4, minimum thread 277.

Stitching looks fine to me. As for the tooling not bad for a first effort. I'm just starting out at tooling and my first attempt at leaves looked like yours! There's a knack to cutting smooth lines (needs lots of practice!).

Now I know why the inner foot is such a peculiar shape! When I bought my 335 I fitted conventional feet as I didn't need a binder and I always wondered about that inner foot. Thanks for the excellent photos jimi.

Try see-sawing a length of thread through the guide and see if you can feel anything catching.

Ignore some of the waffle in the post (I tend to waffle a bit!), wiz provides some .pdf's that will be useful for adjusting the machine and on page 2 rockyaussie has a link to Uwe's excellent video for doing the adjustments. It's worth taking the time to check those adjustments.

" so the class four is by far the best sewing machine I’ve ever run, my lord this thing is built like a take but has the finesse To be smooth and easy to run ". When I bought my 4500 it sewed fine straight out of the box, whatever I could get under the feet, with #277 thread. Once I started checking it over, however, I found that the timing and feet adjustment weren't quite right and needed tweaking, and yet it still worked while out-of-spec. Impressive. And yes, built like a tank.

It's stitching, so there can't be too much wrong with it. At that price you've done extremely well.

Yes, push the stitch length lever all the way up and it reverses the stitch.

Poor little Pfaff. It sort of looks like someone was stripping it for parts.

Great buy! Now comes the fun.

Way to go, Jeannie! Looks like it's sewing well. I look forward to seeing the end product.

Jeannie, have you downloaded the manual I linked? It explains how to adjust the feet. The wingnut should be on the other end of the bolt in the first picture, it tightens a curved slotted bar.

I don't know Jeannie, but if that piece you bought fits then I'd say yes, it will fit, as that looks like a Pfaff binder plate. Does it have a part number on it? Those other two machines are clones of a Pfaff 335 and Juki 246, so I'm wondering if yours is one they designed themselves? They are supposed to be a large sewing machine manufacturer.