Gunnarsson

Welding, brazing/silver soldering or making parts yourself is a great option for many repairs. Good job!

Rotating inertia doesn't care about where on the circle the weight is located. Gravity would have a small effect, but I can't imagine anyone trying to use that on a high speed machine, causing it to be out of balance and getting vibrations because of it. IF the wheel is heavier on one side (it may not be, hard to tell from one side) it WILL be to counter balance something else, on the opposite side.

Others have talked about the difficulty in sewing straight and well while using one hand for cranking, so I believe I would be putting motor on it sooner or later. But sure, if i don't get a suitable one at the same time as the head I will most likely try hand cranking it, it's not like I could have the head available and not try to use it!

I have been thinking about getting a true industrial machine, putting it on a box like those portable "semi industrial" Sailrites etc, and hanging a suitable motor off the back. Big and heavy, but way easier to find room for than an entire table. The available portable machines just seem too limited, lots of money for a machine with basically the same capacity as a vintage domestic, just plus the walking foot. Might as well aim for something with descent capacity.

I'm also just a hobbyist with very limited experience, I'm keeping my eyes open for a usable sewing machine but so far I'm really mostly doing research and trying to learn what to look for. In my eyes, the Boss is an interesting machine, but priced way higher than it is worth to me. On the positive side it has impressive capacity, on the negative side it seems like alot of people have problems with them (especially the later aluminum ones) and being hand cranked it will be slow and noisy - probably fast enough for the hobbyist doing an item now and then, but much too slow and labour intensive for actual production work. If I come across one very cheap I'd probably buy it just to try it out, but I'd probably sell it on once I'm done playing with it and use the money for something with a motor.

Allright then, I've got to give it a try when I find one that hasn't been killed by abuse or rust!

The old ones I've seen have certainly not been stainless either, but it sounds like they're worth taking a chance on assuming I can find them in good enough condition - the rust has usually done quite a bit of damage in all the wrong places. But they'll be cheap for sure, anything over (equal to) $2 or 3 and I'll walk away if they're not in very good condition.

Nickle rod might be the easiest way to weld it (a good reason that has made the method popular), but there are many options and that one might not always be the best. Unlike a brazed or O/A weld with actual cast iron filler the usual MMA nickel rod w/o preheat and slow cooling welding will cause the cast iron around the weld to cool down so quick it becomes white cast iron (instead of grey) with a high amount of iron carbide making it very hard and more brittle.

Brazing can actually be stronger than the cast iron itself. I've got old oxygen/acetylene welding handbooks from the 1930s-60s (when O/A was the go to method) where they describe a cast iron brazing test. You build up a "wart" of brazing bronze, about ½" diameter and height if I recall, on a cast iron plate. Once it's done and cooled down you hit the wart from the side with a hammer until it breaks loose, if you've done it right the brazing bronze will take a layer of iron with it, i.e. the bronze doesn't come loose, rather the cast iron breaks under it. I'm sure there are some methods to weld cast iron with a stronger result, but what's the point? There's still cast iron right there next to the weld ready to break if you overload it again.

I come across old scissors similar to these at flea markets every now and then, this general shape, one blade with teeth and one with a regular straight edge. This style scissor seems to be sold as leather scissor and fish scissor (for cutting fins etc.). Do you know if there is an actual diffrence between them, and if it really makes a diffrence when using them for either job? I've been picking up old rusty fabric shears and restore them to usable condition for a few years now, if those leather/fish scissors work good enough in leather they might be worth the effort too, but I have no interest in them if they're useless outside the kitchen. Especially since the old ones i find aren't stainless.

In my hands, that would be a brazing job. Cast iron has a few problems that makes it harder and in some cases impossible to weld (you don't know if it's a weldable cast iron alloy before you've tried), so you don't want some amateur with no knowlege and experience messing with it.

Can someone please explain why so many people think that sewing machine oil, made for sewing machines, isn't good enough to lubricate their sewing machines that were built to be lubricated by sewing machine oil? Why does everyone think they know better than the people who designed the machine, and the people who makes the oil for sewing machines? Sure, there are many miracle lubricants out there, at least they perform miracles according to the writing on the can it comes in. Believe it or not, the biggest miracle they make is filling the pockets of the people making and selling it -with your money.

Well... It doesn't seem like a very good idea to run for example a Singer 112 at the maximum 2" separation between the needles (if I recall correctly), and then only using one needle while sewing something tough close to the machines maximum capacity, there would be quite a bit of leverage on the needle bar etc. But set for perhaps 1/4" or 1/2" width I doubt there would be a problem. Sure, somewhat uneven load, but nothing crazy.

A proper brazed repair should normally have a higher breaking strength than cast iron, so it can be superior in strength to both the original item and a welded repair. And if you use the proper method and grind a groove where the crack was and braze it up nothing prevents you from grinding any protruding material and painting it to make the repair more or less obvious. (All repairs require stop drilling the cracks and grinding a groove, really - both welding and brazing.) You did not mention the brazing method using an oxygen/acetylene torch, with the proper brazing bronze. Unlike TIG, you can use the torch to preheat the area before brazing. Actually, it could be O/A welded too - in some cases it's still the best method. It does not use a nickel filler like when arc welding cast iron, rather you use actual cast iron rods for filler (such as Kastweld 111). The upside is that after the repair you still have a 100% cast iron item, that can be drilled, tapped and machined as before if the proper slow cooldown was used. The downside? The part needs to be stripped down completely. Complicated shape items such as cast iron cylinderheads are welded using this method, but those complicated shaped require ALOT of preheat - we're talking the entire head being bright red. After that the machined surfaces need to be re-machined, but your crack looks like it's in a "better" area requiring way less preheat. I'd go for brazing, partly because it's the lower temperature option. But the warp in the bed worries me a bit, the repair would probably pull it a bit straighter again but exactly how much is hard to know. And if you try to force it back, even after stop drilling and grooving the crack out, it might be enough to break the bed completely off. On the other hand, then you could bolt the halves together and stop worrying about welding or brazing.

This showed up on Facebook in a vintage industrial sewing machine group too. The general consensus there was that the price might be okay for 50 complete, functional and ready to go machines, but the machines being sold are incomplete, rusty from bad storage, most likely worn, and probably needs alot of work to get running if they aren't used for taking parts from. Perhaps $5000 would make more sense.

Makes sense. Out of (mostly mechanical) interest, exactly what is it that stops the lever movement? If it is the more or less sensitive internals of the machine "after" the adjustable places so all that comes under shock load I wouldn't be suprised it will wreak havoc on the adjustments. Om the other hand, if there were adjustable stops more or less directly at the lever, stopping the movement just a hair before the rest of the machine says stop, the machine shouldn't have a problem working.

That's an impressive piece of german engineering, and equally impressive restoration! I Always thought I should stay clear of the Dürkopp patchers due to not having parts available, but they just might be worth the hassle anyway.

I might as well begin with saying I don't have a 29K or any other machine capable of sewing leather, but I have done the research and if I find one for the right price locally there's a good chance I'll buy it. As the others have already said, the 29 is a handicapped machine, at least if you compare it to what lots of people ASSUME it can do just because it's built for sewing leather. The 29-series was designed for making repairs in hard to reach areas in relatively thin leather, they started making the 29 (UFA?) some time around 1870 (I'm sure someone else knows more specific) and while I believe Singer pulled the plug on the 29 sometime around the 1970s Adler has kept going with the Adler 30-series that is still in production. Sure, there has been alot of changes through the years, but the fact that a machine made in 2017 still carries the basic design and function from almost 150 years ago says alot about how good the machine is at doing what it was built to do. But that's just it, people see it doing a great job on patching things and thinks it'll do a thick gun holster, saddle, belt or whatever equally good - it's a machine made for sewing leather so why wouldn't it be able to sew any kind of leather? As R8R said, with industrial machines the tendency is that every machine is specialized to perform one task. It does just that, but it does it wonderfully well. When another task has to be done, you walk over to another machine made for that task - or rather, you send the work piece to the next worker sitting at the machine designed for doing the next task. The industry has little interest in machines that can do alot of diffrent tasks, they don't fit very well in modern manufacturing, so almost only the domestic market has interest in one single machine that can do as much as possible. Unfortunately, (as far as I know) there are no such domestic machines for sewing leather, so we have to compromize. That usually means buying old industrial machines, and limiting the kind of work we do to what the machine is able to do well enough. I'd love to have a compound feed machine able to sew thick leather. Some day I might get one, but today I don't have the money and not really the space either. I don't really have the money even for a 29K at market value (space is easier, it doesn't have to sit on the treadle to be usable) but those come up for very little money occasionally, so I keep my eyes open just in case. It really is a limited machine in so many ways, but I might have fallen in love with it while I did the research. It can do some of the jobs I want to do so at the right price I think it still can be a good buy. And even if I find out I don't like it the market value for them is suprisingly high (possibly in part due to lots of people think they are way more capable than they in reality are) so if I buy at the right price I should be able to sell it on and even make a profit. $200.00 is more than I'd pay, but it sounds low compared to most of the prices I've seen (especially in the US). If it's a working machine in descent condition it might still be a good idea to buy it. Try it out, see what it does, think about if you can use it to make money, if you decide you don't like it you should be able to move it along to someone else without losing money, possibly even making some. Assuming it's a complete and working machine, not too worn, and the value in your area is as high as I'm guessing.

Hello again! If the hollow is to be reground and there is enough meat left in the blade to do it, how would that be done? Since last time I have made myself a jig for sharpening the "outside" edge on scissors to a precise angle on common hones so that part of a regrind is under control, but these old fabric scissors often also have surface pitting from rust all over the inside of the blades. I have been able to get the area near the edge good enough using a schythe hone (picture shows basic idea) but it isn't perfect, it isn't fast, and the closer you get to the tip where the blade is narrower, it's almost impossible.

The size of the belt pulleys determine gear ratio. Smaller on the motor and/or bigger on the machine gives a lower speed.

I'm just an amateur when it comes to sewing machines, but with a gear ratio low enough, 120W would be enough to move a mountain - veeeery slow, but it'll move it. If you use a low gear ratio so the motor doesn't get over loaded I think you should be fine. For "minor repair work" low speed might be what you want anyway.

Thankyou. That makes sense.

I've been reading about sewing machines able to sew leather the last few days, the type of work I have in mind to begin with would be repairing an old jacket made out of chrome tan goat - replace zipper, patch or make a new collar to replace the one with holes worn into it, that sort of stuff. It looks lite one or another version of the Singer 29 patcher is what is available here fairly often, and within my budget, so that's what I've been reading about mostly. Over and over, i see people mention the machines can handle "#69 thread, maybe #92", and "1/4" thick leather, maybe 5/16"". I'm assuming this means it generally works well up to 1/4" and #69, and going bigger sometimes works well and other times causes problems. But what are those problems? I'm a mechanic, I have no problem accepting that any machine has limitations. It just the "It won't work!" without explaination how or why is a bit hard to swallow, I need the how and the why to keep my curious brain under control...

Thankyou! The next time I get my hands on old scissors I'll have a better idea what I'm doing - and a better chance of deciding if they're worth saving or too far gone before I've bought them.

Is the only purpose of the hollowgrind to reduce drag? Is there an ideal width of the flattened(?) ride along the edge? As far as the Tormek goes, the T7/T8 does look like a fairly good option, but I'm still hesitant - I'd like a larger diameter stone. One option is ofcourse to get an old style large sandstone grinding wheel, they're still around (and new ones are available) and some are >24" in diameter. Downside is they never have any kind of grinding jigs, but some metalwork should take care of that. I just got hold of an old 8" sandstone wheel, I'm looking for a suitable electric motor to drive it. That should be a nice step up from doing all the sharpening work by hand, but still, it's just a step along the way to the kind of machinery I really want - too small diameter to work well on some edges.