RockyAussie

Thick or thin I have never had to do and v shape slits or cutting at all except when going into a tight right angle corner. This pic of the bag below is done with what I call the french edge method which starts off with the edge of the leather edge strip being sewn level with the product edge about about 3mm (1/8") in and then glued around covering all of the strip and then folded over the product edge. This then gets restitched with the needle tight up to the rolled edge of the strip. This motorcycle tool bag in the following pic has the edge of the lid section done that way and may be a clearer picture.

Fair enough. I had a look at their new banner thing at the top about HO and that is amazing that you guys can get it even by the square foot or even just the size and shape you need ......and as you see in this picture finding the best ones can be a little tricky. Here is a link to the story - https://www.springfieldleather.com/hermann-oak

Seems to me that when you do good business you grow bigger and gotta also get good staff to keep gettin better still. ( that can be hard) Being a paying site sponsor here ( helps keep the lights on) and a frequent contributor I have to say that having a supplier that is prepared to pay the shipping back if they get it wrong is a very GOOD sign of wanting to get it right. I have to thank @TonySFLDLTHR for sending me out (For Free) some snaps to try out awhile back and report that they were a lot better than the ones I bought here in Australia in recent times. I guess they can try to apply pressure on the original suppliers to mark the hides better but somewhere down the line them hides gotta go. Being able to go and pick through the best will of course leave the more suspect ones behind. If I get something crappy I just give em a ring and normally they knock the price way back or tell me to keep it and send me another one if I need it. Sugar catches more flies than vinegar is what I have found. A free banner at the bottom sort of thingy if you get what I mean. As for followers and any influence that that may have, I have a bit more than a couple myself and maybe this may help give some balance perhaps. AS to who I follow ...I do that with a few but only those whose skills I admire and JLS is one of them few.

Aside from any warranty type issues of which I would suspect to be very few I am more concerned that all of the good work on instructional type video's is now gone as well. I would very much like to thank @SolarLeatherMachines for all of the work that they put into making these and feel sad that they have felt the need to remove them all. I wish them well and hope that one day they may be able to re-release them for the benefit of any past customers at least.

I find that the EPS function comes in extremely useful when doing tight curves as in wallets when they are stitched all the way around gussets in handbags and such for the reason that as the curve gets tight it is necessary to take the foot pressure off and let the top relax. If you were hand stitching you would need to have the holes inside the curve closer together than the outside curve of the article. When I stitch the bottom of the gusset in these clutch bags I lift the foot maybe 15 or so times and the needle stays in to keep every thing straight. The leather that has the pressure taken off then allows the needle on the next step to go slightly further on top. With out this happening the bag would deform quite badly and end up twisted. You can do this with a knee lift or foot pedal but the time and attention would make it way slower. This pic shows some of my typical clutch bags with a fairly tight gusset area. This wallet shows how I prefer to stitch all the way around if possible and that requires 2 or 3 foot lifts in the tight area and is handy for the corner turning as well. A bag like this one requires many foot lifts in many places and although quite thick and hard did not need any speed reducer. I can only add that if you can take a bit of firm/hard leather and try out one with an EPS it should help make a decision that suits you best.

I remember that post and there were quite a few other good points in it as well.

I thought to warn you to allow a bit of free movement but the Kansas weather is a whole heap cooler on average than over here where 100 F is not unusual. Here a bloke gets loose tension on the bottom side pretty quick running with them set ups. Good to allow for a 1 to 11 o'clock before it moves if you get what I mean.

I think that would be a way better machine for the jobs. 1/2" capacity is good. Size 18 leather point needle which do not wander around going through the job and can still handle some pretty tough stuff as well. The 3" cylinder end is about my only reservation on the gusset work but smart designing will overcome most of that most of the time.

Welcome @Tulsa and thanks for your input. Anybody offering advise to help in any way on LW should never ever be considered stupid. The fact that you're here looking says you gettin smarter.

Page 22 in this manual may help. https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1680001/Consew-227r-2.html?page=12#manual

Yeah the ones we are working on should be about 1/2 that for the dog foot and needle plate set. I should have some samples and and pictures pretty soon now.

If you replace the roller and put in a bit of 3/4" angle bolted on you would have something similar to guide above. If you want to cut out the see-saw as you stitch you need to get a narrow throated needle plate and thinner feed dog to match as shown below. This makes freehand way way easier and predictable including the straighter better tension look on the underside. Soft leather also is then more real and note again I am using just a standard left foot.

Different machine but this pic shows another flat edge guide I made that I can angle inward etc. This keeps a little inward pressure with a strap and it pretty much feeds itself through with minimal help.

The softness of that leather as you say makes it a little hard to keep straight. I have for soft leather edges a flat edge guide about an inch long that helps the leather edge not move in as it does on the standard roller style guides. If you decide to make one tilt the back end about 1 degree inward as this will make the long straps stay straight and almost not need to be held. Following a straight line on soft leather like this will often lead to some over stretching of the work and look wobbly when finished.The foot work combo is not the best in my opinion and I think you would be better with a left foot in use instead. This will make the job hold more stable and will not affect your visibility that much if at all. Where you have welded in the back of your needle plate means that you have reduced the possible length of your stitches and you could also easily cause damage if you mistakenly open the stitch length a little too far as you go. I would suggest the flat needle plate may be worth a try for now if you have one. You may be able to get a set of narrow dog feet and needle plate as I did in the post I mentioned above or if you want to wait for a few weeks I have a friend working on making a matching set for the Cowboy 4500 along the same line over here. I should have some to trial pretty soon and I will post the results here on LW when that is done. BTW the bag work looks promising and if your machine is set up right I would say the bag should easily be made in a day on a one off basis as long as you have all of your patterns sorted well. This could be half that time frame if you were doing 5 at a time with minimal variations. I don't see where any hand stitching would be needed except perhaps the handle and that can be designed to work for a machine as well.

Welcome @wizcam and may I thank you for so early going to the effort of sharing. Looks pretty good to me.

I have had a look into the FAV AV2 range and found that they do have a model that has 2 motors on it. That model has a super suction on it. If you look at the bottom pictures on the second page in this pdf file you can see the one with the single motor and the double motors version. http://www.fratellialberti.com/lang2/files/Depliant--AV1-AV2.pdf I doubt there would be much issue in getting the aspirator to go with a single phase set up but you could probably get an answer by contacting the makers. Here below are a couple of pictures I took today of mine with the single motor set up From the back showing the drive pulley to the left and the vacuum extractor to the right. Close up on the motor Hope that helps some Brian

I think a picture of the job that you are trying to do would help get a more relevant answers. Are you trying to stitch close to the outer edge or close to a seam?

In the Campbell Randell video above at just past 20 minutes in you will see why an aspirator is a very desirable feature. When that waste comes up it often comes up 1/2 way through your work and tears it to pieces. The waste scrap pieces visible at the back of that machine show what you can expect without an aspirator. I There are some silly little scrapers on the non aspirated skivers these days and I have seen on here where they fail and where people I looking for better fixes. It would be wise to spend at the start and not have to try and fix later. As for the FAV AV2 of mine it has 1 motor single phase. The right side when you look under has a belt to drive the skiver and on the left side it has the extraction set up with a tube then running over to the collection box. The motor itself is not a clutch motor just a simple single phase motor. The clutch action happens up at the skiver head and that is the same on the Fortuna as well. You could easily change the motors on either of these machines to a single phase as long as the rpm is the similar. You may have to do a little adapting to a mounting plate but that is pretty easy. Motor cost over here I would guess at $120 au. The first bell knife skiver I had was an old Fortuna and had the disadvantage that when you fed the job through slow the bell also went slower and worse it had no aspirator. I wrecked a lot of work on my shoe uppers at the time. I felt guilty selling it to some poor bugga for $200. I should have given it to him with a sympathy card. I can do a few pictures under the FAV if you really want.

Some info in this post I did awhile back may help you. Some pictures of your work may help with suggestions.

I am not sure what they mean there. They have a feed stone that feeds the material through but that is on all bell skivers. I am guessing they may be refering to the black knob you see at the back right in the video above. When you turn that knob down you can make the speed of transport go a the speed you want it to go at which can be useful when doing long strips on a continuous basis. That is not a feature on the Fortuna but if you kick the heavy foot pedal forward on the floor you can pretty much achieve the same thing. With a servo motor you could set the speed but I am unsure if you could get the same slow crawl that you can with a good clutch set up. Dinners ready so I will check in tomorrow. Here is another video worth a look -

The FAV AV2 of mine is single phase 220 volt. The aspirator on it is quieter than my Fortuna but in an apartment building could be annoying for an extended period. Maybe a lot more pleasant than hip hop though. Skiving operations rarely need to go for any extended time frames keep in mind. A long stint may be 1/2 hour in one go. The Fav has a clutch motor with a very controllable clutch as well. The aspirator goes when the machine is turned on and I don't think is separable. I can find out tomorrow if you like.

Forget the old Fortuna. I always recommend having an aspirator (suction) installed on the machine and particularly if you want to do any of the thinner softer leathers. I have a Fortuna as can be seen in my you tube links along with some mods you may find interesting and as well an FAV AV2 skiver as well. I like the Fortuna slightly better due to it having a little more fine tune adjustment controls but I think for 900 Euro the FAV would be an excellent purchase. Parts for them are in my experience quite good as well. Here is a link I just found on the FAV - http://www.fratellialberti.com/lang2/skiving-machines-av2.html If you care to have a look into my profile section and over into the "about me" section you can also find some previous posts on the Fortuna in use. Best Wishes Brian

Just wondering does this video not show you that answer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=Fsb-yUp1nMQ&feature=emb_logo

Or ( I will get in trouble for this I know) you can leave the little bent wrench in there are turn the machine backwards by hand. As it it sometimes easier to get more leverage this way as the wrench touches the table it will stop it from moving and then come loose.

And the thread is firm to pull through the discs and gets harder as you tighten the disks? @Uwe has a video on one of these I think and still may have one of these.