dikman

Josh is right in that the only way to get better looking stitching on the back is to hand stitch. It's the nature of machine sewing and leather, the back will never look as good as the front.

South of the Murray? That's a big help, it's a bloody long river, Bert.

At least as regards the knee lifter. I'm surprised you could get any lift at all, the mechanics and leverage were all wrong. I agree with kgg about just using 1 strand of the wire (or you could replace it with a chain). The hole it goes through in the table looks like it's already been elongated a bit? Don't be scared to tinker with the various adjustments on the knee mechanism to make it more comfortable to use.

Under normal use both feet should lift to the same height so that is where your problem is. Do you have the manual for it? It's a good idea to become familiar with the adjustments because you will end up having to adjust things at some point - like now.

Looks to me like the timing off the feet is off. Needle appears to be all the way in, inner foot down and outer foot also down. The outer foot should be lifted by now.

That is very clever! Some people are certainly creative.

Can't help wondering about the competency of the dealer who set that up..........

From time to time newbies have the same problem with photos, plenty of free programmes available to re-size photos. Most of the forums I'm on require photos to be re-sized before posting. You've done a good job with that machine.

The label on the machine says LS-1341. The geometry on that knee lifter looks wrong, normally you push sideways with your knee to operate it but yours looks like you have to push up with the knee?

Or connect the chain to the wire loop that hooks onto the knee lift (although hooking onto the hole at the end of the lifting bar will give greater leverage for lifting).

Thanks Mike, now I can see them - just! I find the whole thing a bit weird. They're obviously not completely hollow rivets. I doubt if I could replicate that if I tried (not that I want to).

Well, I have the book and those rivet heads are doing a good job of hiding from me.

From the crimp side they look like eyelets. Just to confuse things I don't see any rivet heads between the loops.

You don't have to have the wicks, many upholstery class machines don't have them. Just get into the habit of regularly oiling the moving parts.

I need to make myself new holsters (for Single Action shooting) and it occurred to me that a slight forward cant (a la John Wayne's holster) might be interesting. Can anyone think of any reasons why this isn't a practical idea? Or would it be better to make them "normal" upright type? I'm hoping people with experience will chime in. I have a set with a rearward cant, patterned from Steve McQueen's in The Magnificent Seven, but as I draw and use a two-handed grip to fire it seems to me that a forward cant should make for smoother drawing.

Looks good, you are a clever boy. Only one possible problem - make sure you don't buy aluminium bobbins.

Fortunately the smoke hasn't been much of an issue where I live (up in the hills, it mainly affected the lower suburbs). A cool change has come through and it's almost cold now! Won't last, of course, as Feb/March are traditionally our hottest months. There are certainly some similarities between parts of Australia and California, climate-wise, but fortunately not politically.

It looks like the tension release is working ok in that video. As Toxo said the loops on the bottom appear to be not enough upper thread tension.

Nice. Understated and simple lines.

Well, I just finished tweaking it - again - and changed a pulley on the reducer to try and get it to run smoother (the brushless motor isn't as smooth at very slow speed as a brush-type motor). I'm getting there. And I agree, having issues right from the start has been good as I've got a pretty good understanding of this machine now. As for sewing something, it could be a while. The weather's been hot, which I don't like, and my hay fever has been particularly bad this year. The doc put me on yet more medication for it (one of the problems with getting old is the number of tablets you end up taking!!!) and I have an acute lack of enthusiasm for doing much as a result. Still better than the alternative, I guess.

Nice work as always, Josh, but it looks awfully plain - for you!

Looks good, I like the method of payment. Yum yum!

The Juki engineers manual is in this post, along with Uwe's excellent adjustment video. It's probably worth becoming familiar with the basic timing of the machine, although if it's forming stitches ok (other than fraying the thread) then it's probably still in time. First thing is to get rid of the burrs on the feed dog.

Your reasoning makes sense. I doubt if there was anything wrong with the machine or they wouldn't have allowed you to test it. Simply operator error, we all suffer from that at some point. If the machine suits what you need it for, and the price is right, then it's worth considering because you will have support close by, although as you become more familiar with it you would probably be able to resolve minor issues yourself.

Carrie, I just looked at the manual for your servo and it has more settings than most that I've seen. Most of them you probably won't use, but generally there is some interaction between things like the max speed that is set and the startup speed setting, it can be trial and error to find out what works best. The main thing is that if it's working for you that's all that matters. My machines have speed reducers, which also affects the speed settings used and I generally have the servos set for pretty low max speed because that is all I need. Yes, I still don't understand that statement, but I guess it doesn't matter - it's working and you're happily sewing away!