I purchased a Consew 206RB-5 last fall and just love it. It will sew through nearly a half inch of leather with relative ease. I am making bags, briefcases, belts and other things and it is perfect. I recently made a briefcase and stitched together a handle that consisted of a layer of harness leather, 10-12 oz, and two layers of 8-9 oz leather, the most I have put through this machine and it handled it well. My only issue is that I could really use a cylinder arm machine for bags to do interior flat stitches, but that will be my next machine. I did consider the Juki, but the Consew won.