RockyAussie

Light dimmer switch and a 60 watt and a 80 watt soldering iron is all I've been using for the last 25 maybe 30 years now. I generally shape up the tips to whatever shape I want. The gouge out shape allows me to run the pressure up one side than back again over on the other side then one or so up the middle does the trick. You need to give the tips a polish on a rag wheel now and again about every 100 or so belts or so. Here are some pics that all look a bit messy but I can assure the end products are not. I like the ones that have a light on them as they show brighter and dimmer along as the dial is rotated. This shows how the grooved iron is used The rag polishing wheel that is used with the tripoli polish sticks Another tip showing how I tidy up holes and slots etc- A finish belt after edging and polish

I don't know this machine but if it does not have a hand lift then it is important to lift the feet to stop the dog foot from scraping the feet and making a mess on you leather. Most auto oilers are for fast speed operations as far as I know.

Thank you back. We sell a little on line but 95% is crocodile manufacturing for a few brands and most of the crocodile farms in Australia for their tourist markets. We may try a little crocodile product for our own web site maybe later this year. A lot of the product on our site is the leather versions of what we make for those clients. Good practice stuff at the start of the runs sort of.

Your welcome.Note: you have another new follower there too

That is one very nice pick up. Just watch the auto oiling system delivers a good amount of oil around. Because you will probably be sewing slowly to start with the oil may not feed enough and it may be wise to lift the foot and let it run fast for a minute before you start each day. Saying that... if you get a manual you should see in it how to increase the oil flow. As @mikesc said ... Good on ya

Hey @robs456 I think you might already know that you have as much chance of pushing excrement up a steep hill with a pointy stick than getting that Angelus to iron in. I checked your insta in your signature link and looks to me like you you got it pretty well sorted already. Nice paint work too BTW.

Cant think of any solution myself as I would have to know what is causing it first I think. Crazy things come to mind like oil from a push bike chain throwing up on to it or resting up against something like an ostrich skin product that is either badly set in the colouring stage or an imitation ostrich ....the list goes on and the mind boggles. Sorry cant help any better.

That is the main advantage which I find important for the product I make. I have even designed a smaller cap than the original cap to enable even tighter products to fit within. It can do what the others do most of the time except the other 2 you mention can take thread larger than #138. They go to #210 thickness. If that is important in your product line I would go with the 2700 as its needle is close to the edge like the 2600 and has a reduced cut out which at times would allow for fairly tight tubular curve stitching.

So you have to dye them yet? Are they veg (tan colour) or chrome (green grey) tanned or a retan?

A speed reducer can be a bit of an advantage when you are starting off and can give you a fair bit more punching power but I still have plenty of clutch motors that without reducers and they will have to wear out probably before they get replaced with servo motors. I have one small juki flatbed that I changed to a servo recently and without a reducer and it seems fine and more controllable than with the old clutch. Note: the servo motors make NO noise when they are not turning and that can be a trap as if you hit the peddle and don't realise the machine is on it takes off and .......Hopefully you don't have a finger under the needle or something. They do save a fair bit on the power usage as well compared to a clutch. I think I saw a near new 355 on here for sale a day or so back for only $1900. Here is the link -

I was curious as to the quality of your Segma snaps and thought I see if I could find your business. I eventually succeeded and then found in your terms and conditions NOTE: We do not ship to addresses outside of the USA and Canada. I would like to try these snaps out if you can help me there but I am in Australia.

You could consider putting some thin cork on the back like the flooring type. Also if you transition to leather I would consider just stamping the designs in as against the laser and the associated cleaning up and sealing etc. There is where the clicker press may come in handy as well. That can go at about 30 seconds per stamping per piece.

Ha Ha ...you gonna have ta lay offa that rattle snake meat Chuck. I do hope you are not suggestin my pouches are not functional an meant to be used Dammmm...Wyoming is waaaaaaaay over there.....

I agree with Gary they all look great Alex. I don't think you have much reason to excuse your work for as I am sure many here would like to be so good.

All so true. I do prefer the Strongbond (ex Venus) as it behaves less slippery in the tension and behaves better than any other I have tried. It does not suffer from that hairy look when you finish and burns off nicely as well. Only problems is here in Australia it is getting very low on the colour range available these days and if they don't have it, you have to buy a whole carton of the one colour.

Bags, belts/straps, shoes uppers,wallets purses up to 10mm (3/8") thick and just about anything you can see on my web site. (Not the linesman's pouch) If I were starting all over again this would be my first machine. It can do anything that you can do on a flat bed and most things that you can on a post machine as well. Main limitations are the thread size at max #138 and the thickness it can sew. A larger cylinder gives you more difficulty getting into tight gusset areas and if you look at my wallets I sew all the way around which to me is quicker and neater.

Very nicely done contrast colouring and the thread swapping adds a very nice detail.

Normally I buy 3x20 litres at a time along with a drum of the thinners for it as we need to thin it for the glue machines and for spraying as well. I ran short of the thinners once and found that I could use general purpose thinners (GP Thinners) be that it was not as good as the proper thinners. Your paint shop will be able to help.

They both have 1 advantage in that they can sew in any direction (360 degrees) but the feed is only achieved by the top foot grabbing and pulling the job along. This can be a problem for getting uneven length stitches and foot teeth marks and sometimes when sewing up the arm keeping the thread to the left or the right of where the needle goes into. It is worth having one but the money would be better saved and put toward a cylinder. In my experience looping tension problems can be hard to avoid as well. I have many years of experience using them and can get a pretty good result but that only comes with years of practice that you get from sewing inside shoes and following the same holes etc.

I have a wide range of machines but the one I use most is a small cylinder arm machine. They can do a wider range of operations than other machines and give professional results. This one here from Techsew called the 2600 is along the type I would start with. http://www.techsew.com/machinery/industrial-sewing-machines/cylinder-machines/techsew-2600-narrow-cylinder-leather-industrial-sewing-machine.html For just over $2000 I would consider their finance options.

For bags and backpacs and wallets etc I would try and find a cylinder machine to start with like a Pfaff 335 or Adler 69 or there are a lot of clone copies of these that some of the sponsors on this site could help you out with. The 2 I mention here have a small cylinder diameter around 46mm there abouts and come in handy when you have tight areas to get into. Many use a table top attachment with these to give them in affect a flat surface to work on.

Hey Gary if the problem you are having is along the lines in this picture below you could try using the slotted needle plate or if you have not seen it yet here is a post I did awhile back might be of interest. Problem below shows what happens when trying to sew close to the edge with the standard dog foot/needle plate.

At that thickness I would make sure the 2 pieces are sanded rough to help good adhesion but make sure that the outside piece is a good 2" or so longer. Without gluing wrap one piece around your waist and then the other on top and you will see that there is a huge difference. If there is too much difference when they are put together the glue will have a hard time holding it together. I would split the difference between out straight and curved all the way around and I'm thinking that's about 2". Getting it stitched would be a good idea.

What you are suggesting sound about right to me. Before you start though ALWAYS make sure that what you are about to fix is worth fixing. There is no point throwing good money into a thing that is no good any longer. If you find that a with little pressure that the rip opens up more then show this to your customer because whatever stitching you do wont last very long and then you look at fault. If it is only sheep skin ...don't bother you are wasting your lifetime.

Very nice ...that will be one very proud uncle I reckon.