Dougster

Ouch. Didn't know it was going to be so pricey. A month at our local space is fifty bucks...

Do they have any maker spaces near you? I don't know Brooklyn, but a quick search pulled up Gowanus Studio. Is that anywhere close? http://gowanusstudio.org/

I've bought both thread and bobbins from Toledo Industrial. I think Wawak is also a good place for thread...

What size thread are you using? Did you leave several inches of thread hang out of the bobbin when you put it in? When you rotate the machine through its cycle, does that tail of thread get pulled up to the top and can you then pull on it with your fingers? When you try to sew, do you place the material under the presser foot and hold the threads for the first few stitches?

I'm no expert yet, but that doesn't look like a 206rb, rb1 or rb2. The one I have has a chrome lever sticking out of the front of the machine that you lift up to put the machine into reverse. The one in your pictures looks like it has the lever that you push down. My machine also has the bobbin on the left side of the needle, in a vertical position, instead of the horizontal position on the right of the needle in those pictures...

One of our local stores is closing. Apparently it's because the lease is up. They're moving everything to the other store in town...

Ah, no, I missed that. Rats... Next time! Really looking forward to it. And I'll be ready to buy more too. Since this was my first time, I really had the reins pulled in...

Sorry, a ruler? Did I miss something? I'm still new around these parts...

Yeah, I loved the one he called the "skittles fish," a bright yellow colored stingray... LOL!

Yep, I gave Barry $110 for two awl blades and two handles. I was thinking hard about that six pound maul of his too... I loved Josh Fields' knives and Ron's groovers. And Clay Miller had some nice stuff including a swivel knife that almost came home with me. And Bob Beard...wow, just wow. The place I really could have lost all my money though was at the Van Amburg booth. Turns out they supplied the wildebeast that my wife's boots were made from...

I saw Cobra Steve at the Prescott show this weekend. He had some beautiful looking equipment there...

We drove up to Prescott Saturday to go to the leatherworkers show. Glad we went! Met a lot of cool people, saw a lot of great tools, drooled over a bunch of leather. Wife and I got away from the show for under $150. It would have been so easy to blow every penny in the savings account! LOL Highly recommended...

LOL, now I feel silly for whining about fifty bucks! I went ahead and ordered the parts from College Sewing...

I don't know about that particular dealer, but I do appreciate what people have been saying here on the forum. That is, you can buy a machine from a lot of dealers, and it will probably be alright, but if you buy from one of the established businesses that knows about leather work, they will set up the machine and make sure it works well before sending it to you, and if there's a problem after you get it, they will help you out. As with so many things, the cost of the tool itself will be way less than the cost of the labor/time/effort you spend on it. The other thing I'd suggest is to check out your local sewing community and see if there is a reputable repair person/mechanic in the area. Someone like that can help you out before and after a sale...

I'm loving this thing! You're right about expensive parts...the stitch length screw and locking lever were trashed, so I looked into getting new parts. $57! I can see why someone might have been using a pair of vise-grips on it. Sigh...

This thread is really reinforcing my happiness about buying these older machines. Secondarily, it makes me appreciate my 65 year-old, 30 years-of-experience repair guy even more!

I didn't think there was anything to gain at that point. Maybe it's going to make her look bad. Maybe he's going to learn something he might not have wanted to know. Maybe I would have learned that he was like her. No matter, I had made my decision at that point and had no need to do anything else but say thank you, shake his hand, and drive away...

I'm sure that, at some level, all of those overs and unders you're not aware of do balance themselves out. I have a problem with the ones you *do* know about though. Those aren't balanced by the ones that you *don't* know about. I believe that if you're going to (try to) be ethical, you have to either accept all overs and unders, or reject all overs and unders. That is, if you challenge the overcharges that you know about, you have to challenge the undercharges that you know about. Put a different way, I believe that if you take the money when you know they undercharge, you have to give the money when you know they overcharge. In reality, I personally think the only proper way to deal with it is to point it out when you see it happen. Side story: I bought a motocross bike trailer some years ago. They asked for an amount. I agreed, and then the guy threw in a couple extra pieces. I went to the bank and got cash out for them. I decided to get an extra twenty bucks for the extra parts. When I handed over the money, the guy's wife counted it. He asked if it was the original amount and she said yes. I looked at her and could tell that she knew there was extra. It was fascinating to see how she reacted. In that moment, I decided that I would not buy any of the other items they had for sale. I sometimes wonder if she even told her husband about it or whether she pocketed the extra twenty... To tie back into the original subject, I would have been much happier if the manager had acknowledged the mistake and had me pay the difference directly, instead of acknowledging the mistake, telling me not to worry about it, and then adding the difference into the next transaction.

OK, I'm getting some waxed polycord from Maine Thread and some Tiger/Ritza 25 and Fil au Chinois from Rocky Mountain so that I can really see for myself what the hype is. It's only money, right? LOL The stuff I have now is very flat. If you take the time to keep the thread from twisting and properly wrap it around the needle (see Nigel Armitage's pricking iron videos for the technique) before pulling it tight, it looks very nice. And yes, it's polyester. As for wax, I'm no expert in any of this stuff, but it seems like it would be better to start with too little wax and add more to any thread just by buying your own block of beeswax, right?

Please refer to message #19 above: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=67396&p=439440 Follow up: Tandy corporate must have forwarded my message to the local store, as I received a hand-written note in the mail from the manager along with a gift of a piece of leather I had been eyeing in the store. That was an unexpected surprise.

I'm quite happy with this thread so far. Maybe I'll be spoiled once I get some of the Tiger thread, but in the meantime, I'm getting along fine with this stuff. The Dowco thread seems to have a bit more wax than the Soledi, but other than that, I think these two products could have come off of the same manufacturing line. I think there are going to be more stitching chisels in my near future! I'll get some pictures sorted out soon...

The repair guy is putting a new hook in it. When I pick it up, I'll be happy to post pictures of it and the Adler... In the meantime, it looks very much like this one:

This is great info, love this site! So I just bought a 206. It has the lift-up reverse lever, so looks like it's an RB2 or earlier. Is there any way of pinning it down further than that?

I'm amazed at how smooth the Adler is! It makes the Consew actually seem almost a bit...clunky... (If that makes sense...)

Hey Uwe and Art, Just to continue pushing your buttons, I found an Adler 67GK373 locally. (Or should I not buy it because the guy isn't on your approved dealer list?)