cdthayer

Thanks Ryano. That helps me learn more about rivets. Looks like some places have small assortments too. I won't set very many in my line of work, but they come in handy once in a while. The old REX 27 pictured above cleaned up pretty good with a wire brush and sewing machine oil. I'll just need to wipe it down a few more times to get all of the excess oil off of it before I get it close to anything. It'll probably be dried out enough before I get some rivets and have a need for it down the road. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Wow, thanks for the information on these old riveters. I have had a REX 27 that came off of the ranch where my family pioneered, but I never knew what kind of rivets that it takes. I was led to believe that it was for brake linings. I just bought a hand riveter this month for the first tube rivets that I've ever needed to set, so I've never had any around. I picked up another REX 27 in an auction last year, along with a Pomeroy that is very similar. I included some quick snapshots of them, and the information cast into them is: REX - 27 - Pat Oct 9 1900 The Gem Set - Patd Mar 9 09 - N.C. Pomeroy - Inventor I wonder if the Gem Set riveter is designed for the same type rivet? The tubes and anvils look the same size. Now maybe I can get some rivets (5/16" Head, 1/8" tube) and put my family's old REX 27 back into use at my shop. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

That reminds me of another benefit of producing your own cards. When something changes in your contact information, the change can be implemented immediately. We print just a few at a time as we need them, and recently changed our web name. The new "dot com" was on our cards the same day. It can be hard to dispose of a box of 500 expensive raised letter, embossed, 3-color cards, and when I used to buy that type, I would do as most do, and mark through the incorrect information and pen in the changes. I didn't realize how bad it looked until I got some of them from other people. A couple of them gave me their card and then immediately said "Let me have that back, that's not the right phone number anymore". After I got home and looked at the card again, they had scribbled the new number on the card, but I couldn't read it clearly (is that a "7" or a "1"?). Kind of ruins the effect of an elegant card. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Hi Bonnie, Your booths are similar to our quilt show booths (the 8x16 floor plan sample earlier in this thread), in that they are a combination of retail and production. I consider our cutting table, POS table, and the room beside them where we stand as our "production" part, since they don't have retail items on them, and are used by us to do the show. I list the space used by chairs and stools as "storage" space (LOL), since it's where we store ourselves and they have no other use of the floor space. Using the space under tables for storage is a freebie, since the floor space for the tables is considered either retail or production space. If we didn't have tables to stash things under, we'd have to haul stuff outside to the pickup, and then go haul it back in when we needed it like you do with your van. Now that I've been attacking the year-end 2009 reports for our business and have our total cost, I crunched some numbers to see what our shop floor plan is costing us percentage-wise per square foot when split out into 4 categories (Retail, Production, Storage, and "Free Space" for isles). I made a little calculator in an Excel file (great formula tool) to crunch my numbers. We're trying to adjust our floor plan a little to make better use of our space. Our Free Space is the highest percentage at our shop at 32.1%, just slightly higher than our storage space at 31.6%. That's 63.7% of our total floor. I ran my booth space floor plans through it to see how the percentages shake out for them. On the 10x10 booth space that costs $20 for 100 square feet, the results for that sample floor plan are: Cost per foot is 20 cents, and the use is Retail 37% ($7.40), Production 12% ($2.40), Storage 4% ($0.80), and Free Space 47% ($9.40). On the 8x16 booth that costs $40 for 128 square feet, the results are: Cost per foot 31 cents, Retail 35.9% ($14.38), Production 30.5% ($12.19), Storage 3.9% ($1.56), and Free Space 29.7% ($11.88). So the Free Space is the highest percentage at one of our show booths and second highest at the other. Although Free Space is a necessary evil as a space-waster, it may be something to look at to help us make our booths more profitable. We have to provide adequate space for shoppers, but maybe the floor plans can be adjusted a little. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Josh, You may want to first decide what type of website that your business needs. An eCommerce site or an advertising site? It will depend on what you need your website to do for you. I consider an eCommerce site as a secure site with payment handled when ordering, and an advertising site as simply a billboard with no shopping cart. If you have inventory that you buy and sell that is easy to restock, then a secure site with a shopping cart that can take payment when taking orders may be best, but it's going to cost more. Otherwise, a billboard type of a website to advertise your business may be plenty. There are all kinds of "hybrid" sites that combine the two using off-site payment buttons. We started out with a hobby site for my utility pole climber collection activities, then it became an advertising website for custom craft items, and it certainly increased our craft sales when we put them on-line. I do all of the website design and maintenance myself and pay to have it hosted in Chicago (it was in New Jersey when we started in 1998). I just went shopping for a hosting plan and found them. Our site is still an advertising website, but now for our brick and mortar shop too. We looked at getting a shopping cart, but decided against it. The main problem was going to be inventory management. In order to sell on-line and on-site both, we would have to have two separate inventories. You can't sell the same item twice. If an online customer and a walk-in customer both bought the same thing at the same time, one of them won't get it. This is especially true if it's an item that is no longer in production. I know some businesses do it, but it seems like sooner or later they will make an unhappy customer. It's similar to those (auction site) sellers that list items for auction, and then simply order them from the supplier when they get a bid. When the supplier backorders the item, then the seller can't complete the sale. It's not a matter of if they're going to get backordered, but when. With today's "just in time" production systems of limited runs, backorders are common. I just don't care for the "virtual inventory" method of business anyway. I want more control of the inventory. I want to have it on-hand before I offer it for sale. We have a few items for sale on our website, but no payment buttons for instant sale, and most of the on-line inventory is off-site and not available to the walk-in customers. It includes close-out items that we take off of the shelf to make room for other products. We are basically using the website to show the items and the price, and then complete any sales inquiries using email. Even if the item is on the sales floor, we can remove it before responding to the inquiry so that it can't be sold to a walk-in customer after we've made a commitment to the on-line customer. We don't have enough on-line inventory to justify a secure site and shopping cart, especially with close-out prices. Custom-made items are difficult to sell with shopping carts due to the variables involved, unless it's an item that has a set of defined "features" that can be included with the basic design, and no other options. If it's truly "custom", at least in my opinion, it's not like any other. More often, it's one of a kind. Putting that item into a shopping cart with features that you haven't seen or heard of before would be tough to price. As an example: we sell custom doo-rags, and my wife builds them to the customer's requirements. We show photos of ones that she's made for previous customers as examples. She has a set of basic design templates and features, but she also gets special requests that she can respond to when they ask (ie. "can you put a black band on the one shown in the photo that has a green band?" or "can you embroider the name on the left side instead of in the front?"). Even with items like those two samples that don't require any change in pricing, putting all of the variables that people need in a custom item onto a drop-down menu would be impossible (IMO). Getting the details of the order, including the text embroidery choices, has been working fine for us with an email form-handler on our site. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I can help you with identifying the machine, but not so much with parts. These old machines can be a problem as far as parts are concerned. They were made before replaceable parts came into play much. These are the first ones made, and newer model parts usually don't fit downhill. This model doesn't really have that many parts on them that are designed to be interchangeable with anything, and even few "replaceable" parts from a similar model unless you replace the entire machine. Bob Kovar in Toledo may be the best place to look for parts, but I've yet to have the occasion to deal with him. I think he's here on this list. I've heard nothing but good about him on several forums, and he may be your best bet. That reminds me that I need to get with him about a free motion quilting foot for my wife's Singer 96-40..... There are probably others here that deal with parts for the Singer 29-series machines, so I'll let them tell you if they have the parts that you need. I have the machine that I showed you (I don't use it), plus a couple of 29K70 machines that I do use, but I don't stock any parts for this series of machines. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Nele, Re-thread the machine again, especially if you unthreaded it to wind a new bobbin with the thread that you had been using in the needle. And make sure that the presser foot is up when you thread it if it's a machine with an automatic upper tension release. It sounds like the hook is catching the upper thread from the needle, if it brings the lower thread up at the beginning, but it can sometimes do that with the needle facing the wrong way. If you didn't do anything with the needle since it sewed correctly, the needle orientation probably isn't the problem. Loops underneath usually indicate lack of upper tension, or the upper thread not in the tension discs good, but the lockstitch usually still gets made. Your fabric will just have a series of loops underneath, and if you make very many stitches, it'll usually ball up and stop your machine. If you can simply pull the upper thread back out like a chainstitch in the top of a feed sack, something else is going on. What model of Adler? CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

If it's a Singer, it's probably a 29UFA (Universal Feed Arm), one of the first of the Singer 29-series line of machines including the 29-4. Have you got a larger photo of it? Is the back side open like mine? [Photo Note: The handwheel has been partially removed on my machine.] The serial number on mine is 12160702 and I date it to 1894. Yours will probably be all numbers without any letters too, if that helps you when trying to determine the serial number. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I like the trellis idea. It's got some style to it. I saw a vendor using a piece of that white plastic/vinyl lattice that you can get at the home supply stores. It had a clean neat appearance, but needed some kind of foundation to support it. Propped up against the wall, it looked a little shaky. An old wooden extension ladder, taken apart and the two halves hinged together by one side, makes a good rustic-looking free-standing rack when stood up with the two halves at 90 degrees to each other. Some of those old ladders may have too much taper to them to stand very straight, and may appear to be about to fall over. I saw a home-made one made out of unpainted 1x4 lumber (no taper), and they had made the cross-bars about twice as wide as a regular ladder. It made it appear more stable, and by loading it sparingly it didn't have the feel of a divider wall because you could see through it easily. Setup, take-down, and transport should be about as efficient as possible, and a good way to get a tall vertical display in a small foot-print. A couple of shorter ones on a table-top may work too, but on a table around the perimeter you'd lose the back side display surface. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Nearly every venue has different booth space assignment sizes, making it necessary to "re-plan" the floor plan each time, especially if using a small space. Plus, we've found sometimes that the 10X10 space is actually a 9X11 or some other size, making display equipment placement upon arrival a variable nearly every time. We try to sketch out our floor plan ahead of time, and build in some room to fudge. I attached a couple of samples that we've used. It helps us visualize how much of the allotted space that our tables, spinners, and POS (Point Of Sale) table is going to take up. It was hard to visualize in our heads, and the first couple of our booths really cramped us and/or the customers. Our POS table is higher than a normal table. We try to keep half of it (2' x 2') completely clear for the customer's use. It helps keep both us and the customer from having to bend over while taking care of the payment transaction. Plus, the customer can easily recognize it as the check-out place, and have a place to put their purse or other shopping bags. Another point about bending over: We don't think that folks like to do that at a booth. We get by with it in the store, but not so much in a booth atmosphere. They'll reach high, but they seldom venture below table height. We have been advised by other vendors to go up with our displays, and we began thinking of free-standing racks in place of the tables, but we've about decided that we want to do both. We're going to go up from our table tops. By doing so, we can continue to use the space under our tables for equipment and additional products. We put one of everything out and keep the duplicates in the tubs under the tables. It cuts down on the display space needed to sell more than one of some items. We have floor-length table cloths, and it's an excellent place to hide tubs, boxes, and handcarts so we don't have to put all of that stuff out in the vehicle. Additional products are right there when we need them. While we think that working on something related to our products can spark more interest in our booth, it can also accomplish a couple of more things for us. First, it gives us something to do during the slow times with sparse traffic, and we can actually be producing something to put in the next booth that we have. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, it gives us a reason to limit eye contact with the crowd as pointed out by Doug. Constantly looking at them can make us appear desperate to make a sale, while looking away can make us look uninterested, so the project provides an acceptable reason to look away when desired. We just make sure not to be working on something that we could become too engrossed in to look up regularly. Something simple that we can leave and then remember where we were when we come back. Thanks Doug, I knew we weren't the only ones studying the crowd at the booths! I think it can be as entertaining as productive. People watching should be an Olympic Sport. The big stores use the "move it to move it" along with the "same stuff - different places" methods of trying to get the product in front of the customer as many times as possible. It's effective. The next time you're in one of the marts, count how many AA battery displays you see and where you see them, then do another count a week or so later. I learned about the neutral space out front from a couple of vendors at a large flea market in Texas. That neutral space can be good selling space! The flea market was one of those places that have the white lines painted on the parking lot to indicate the booth boundaries. At first, everyone had their booths set up within their lines. But as the day went on, these two vendors came out with additional products that didn't quite fit in their booths, so they kind of stuck out into the walkway. Just a little at first, but then I got to noticing that they were getting further and further out. The products were boxes of boots and bundles of socks, and as the vendors would sell or demo the product, they would place more boxes and bundles further out in the walkway. As time went on and the display got further out into the walkway, people strolling along from one booth to the next would bump into them and knock them over. You guessed it, after assuring the shoppers that everything was fine (no harm done), the vendors set them back up even further out in the walkway. LOL! You'd be surprised how many people will buy socks from a vendor after kicking their boot display over. By the end of the day, the crowd had to serpentine around through the boots. We use a combination of walk-in and counter-top for our layouts, and since we've begun using a prop (sewing machine), it has created a natural place for us in the booth. We can be in the booth without appearing to be in the way, and it gives us a good reason to be seated too. I agree with your "eye contact" remark. Good point to bring out. Couldn't your helmet be considered as a prop in this case? My wife said that if I got dancing girls, I'd have to get dancing guys too. I don't think our booth is going to be big enough, but a heck of an idea...... CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

My wife and I are still new at remote event selling from a booth. We actually got started back in October 2003 selling her custom doo-rags outdoors at a small motorcycle rally using an Ozark Trail Dining Canopy, and hanging the doo-rags from clothesline cord tied high in the framework. We hit a few more rallies in 2004, but then decided that we were missing out on too much of the fun by being vendors instead of participants, since sales never seemed to do much more than cover expenses, if that. We hauled all of our vendor booth equipment, plus our camping equipment on two motorcycles, so expenses were actually pretty low. That was back when being a vendor was just a hobby, and a danged good excuse for a motorcycle trip. Being vendors did get us to looking at various booth designs and choices at about every event that we've attended since then, trying to figure out what the best floor plan would be for a small sales booth. We got back into booth selling two years ago in the Fall of 2008, and have been vendors at events (quilt shows, county fairs, craft shows) regularly since then, but now we're usually inside (the canopy is probably rotten now anyway) and we're now trying to make money at it. We set up with completely different products at different shows. The crowds are completely different and the assigned booth sizes are usually different, so our floor plans are completely different as well. At quilt shows, we need an empty 6-ft table for the sole purpose of cutting fabric, and leave the doo-rag spinner at home. But, we don't take our fabric to craft shows, so all table space can be used for products, plus we have a couple of spinners and small free-standing racks. Obviously, as small-time vendors, we want to use the smallest space possible to make the best booth possible. We sketch out a booth floor plan on graph paper to help see how much space our display equipment will take up, and then decide what to take. We began using an Excel spreadsheet with all of our accumulated display equipment and products listed on it, that we trim to fit each event prior to loading time. Some of our equipment is in storage, and some of it comes off of the sales floor at the shop, so we generally stage and/or load our stuff just before the event. The check-off list is essential in making sure we haven't forgotten anything. While at shows, we got to watching people at everyone's booths, including our own, trying to figure out what makes a certain booth floor plan work for the vendor, and how different vendors like to set up. Regardless of how well sales appeared to be going at a booth, we were more interested in whether or not customers were interested in looking at the items in the booth, or move on to the next one, and why. Some vendors are like we were in the beginning, setting up whatever they can and using whatever they have. As we've gone along, and encountered many vendor booth designs, we began wondering how much difference the floor plan plays for the shopper, especially in small booth spaces like a 10 x 10. (A 10 x 10 won't work for us when we're cutting fabric, but works fine for craft shows.) We think it differs with the type of customers, and by the type of products in the booth, but it seems like most crowds share some traits when it comes to the layout of the booth. 1. Customers generally don't like to go into a space where they may have to brush against another customer to get in or out. They like to have a definite "escape route". 2. Over half of the customers want to avoid being confronted by the vendor. A nod and/or a simple greeting and general attentiveness are required, but if the customer wants to visit, they'll bring up the conversation. 3. Few customers will dig through a basket or stack of merchandise, unless they can remain standing in the "neutral zone" (walkway in front of the booths). 4. Nearly all customers like a small empty space on a table to lay their other bags or dig through their purse while checking out. It's essential if you accept checks or have merchandise that could be damaged by laying something on it. 5. Customers tend to at least "swing by" a booth that has some kind of activity going on. We use a small hand crank sewing machine (it's for sale, and also serves as a prop or attention-getter), and other vendors demo their product to attract attention. Demos and props take up sales space. 6. Few customers stop to view a product demo on a TV (unless they're really bored), and most customers will walk past a booth if they can hear and see that a vendor is watching a TV, especially if the TV is hidden from view. Again, a demo TV takes up sales space. Do you agree or disagree with our observations? How do you like to set up when the booth space is small? Walk-in or counter front? Are you seated? In a low chair or up higher on a stool? Do you like to be out front, or try to stay out of the way behind something until you're needed? Do you use a prop or demo at your booth? Vertical displays or tabletop displays (if you have a choice)? CD in Oklahoma thayerarags.com

Anybody that walks in the door. Actually, our business is just about split 50-50 between retail and services. Our retail is mostly quilt fabrics, but it also includes sheep and goat sock fabric or canvas, headliner, vinyl, and upholstery fabric for the do-it-yourselfers, and our line of custom sewn gifts. The services include alterations, mending, zipper replacements, ironing, and sewing machine service. I tear out seams and my wife puts them back together, I help with the starching, she does the ironing, and we both do mending, repairs, and zippers. I service machines. I agree. I'm not currently involved with the 4-H or Boy Scouts, but I'm a past Assistant Scout Master here. We have a great bunch of guys & gals in our community doing exactly what you mentioned. We're a Tandy Leatherfactory retailer and stock or order what we can for the independent leather crafter. I keep a supply of leather remnants, lace, thread, and rivets on hand for the local knife makers. We finally got set up to go "take our show on the road" 2 years ago. We now hit some quilt shows and celebrations in surrounding communities, and we try to have a booth at every event in our town where our products are appropriate (craft shows, county fair, chili cookoff, etc.). We started taking a little handcrank sewing machine with us, mainly to use to kill time. We've pieced quilt blocks at quilt shows and made vinyl pennant strings at the county fair, and we've seen a definite increase in booth attendance since then. Using the sewing machine is a good attraction. We've seen an increase in booth sales too! Usually, I crank and the wife tends to customers. I'm getting pretty good at piecing quilt blocks on a handcrank. A lady came into the store and bought the sewing machine after seeing it at one event, so I have a couple serviced up and ready for the next show, which is next weekend's Annual Oyster Fry. Fresh raw or cooked gulf oysters clear out here in Oklahoma farm country! Great suggestions folks. Thanks! CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

We thought that we had the local area pretty well covered, and had been concentrating on getting our name out to surrounding communities for the past 2 years. Now it seems like we need to concentrate on the local area again. Maybe we should "cycle" our concentrated effort back and forth from local to distant advertising about every 2 years to stretch our advertising dollars best. Things change and people come and go. It seems like it takes new customers about 6 months from the time that they hear about us to finally get around to stopping by. At least that's the way it sounds from their comments. About 50% of our business is from out of town now. Yes, we have a retail fabric and notions store. I'm here at leatherworker.net because we also do mending and repair to leather and vinyl items, and I was a tooler back in the 80s. Everyone thinks the prices are higher at Mom and Pop shops. The chains have done a good job of convincing shoppers of that. We mostly use suppliers that don't sell to the chains because we can't compete with the volume and our customers know that, but the times when we do handle some of the identical items of the chains, we can actually sell it cheaper because our floor space costs are much less. (Some large retailers decide what to sell based on return per square foot of floor space.) Yes, that's good advertising, and just a nice thing to do. I forgot to mention that we donated a bunch of older upholstery fabric to the local animal shelter a couple of winters ago for use as disposable bedding. They had put out a plea for help. I submitted a photo and press release to the media and we got front page exposure. We're working on sorting out another batch for them. It's a good way to clear out products that aren't generating income, get some advertising use out of it, and do something good at the same time. Great suggestions folks. Thanks! CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

My wife and I have a small shop with a very small advertising budget. It's our choice that it's as small as it is. We assign very little money to it. Why? Because we're still not sure where to spend our advertising dollars, even if we could come up with a large sum. So, we had a big hoopty-doo Grand Opening Sale and Ribbon-cutting when we reopened the shop 4 years ago with pictures in all of the papers. There has been a shop like ours here in the same building for 30 years. We had big ol' banners flying everywhere, including a permanent banner with our business name on it that stays in the front window. We have a sidewalk sign in front of our store for everyone to walk by and to view while looking down the street. We have a big lighted "Open" sign in the window and change our window displays at least every month. We run a weekly ad in one of three news publications in town, plus a monthly ad in one and "sporadic" ads in the third. We're members of the Chamber of Commerce and get included in all of their advertising and on their website. We have our own website, and are linked from a few other sites including suppliers and some internet directory sites. We sponsor a community event once a year (quilt show) and get our press releases published before and after the event in multiple issues of the newspapers. We've handed out hundreds of business cards and brochures, and have several banners that we use when we're vendors at remote shows or in local parades. And we have a very nice group of customers that promote us every chance that they get. But for some reason, we're just not getting the word out. We had an out-of-town customer tell us that on a recent trip through our community, she had asked about a shop like ours at a local fast food shop, and was told that the town didn't have one. That was disturbing, but maybe she had asked an employee that was new to the area or something. It finally hit home to us the other day that we simply can not afford enough advertising to catch all of our potential customers. A customer that has known us and lived here for a long time came into the store and said, "Well I didn't know that you were here! When did you open the store back up? I walk by here all of the time, but I never noticed that it was open again." We need to advertise more you think? CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

When you are selling things that don't have a clear "MSRP" available for buyers, such as custom work or vintage items, it seems like it generates a lot of "how much less will you take" questions, even if things are priced for them on the website. I began using a set of forms to email me the information that I need to determine what the buyer wants. I first started using them because I was getting too many emails asking for a quote without giving me the shipping destination so that I could calculate shipping. It helped eliminate the inevitable follow-up email to find out where they were at. People sometimes just don't think to tell you that when they first ask for a quote. I would still get emails from folks who didn't want to use my form, mainly because they wanted to negotiate the price. So, I added another field to the forms that were associated with those items. It is simply a "Make An Offer" field, and I encourage them to put down what they think would be an appropriate price for the item or items. On my vintage items especially, it's difficult for me to always know what price to put on them, so input can be valuable to me as well. Some use it to make reasonable offers that I have accepted. Others make unreasonable offers that save me from having to waste any more time on them.... CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I designed our card and print them as needed on plain cardstock on an inkjet printer. They're black and white and simple. They have our name and contact information on them as most cards do, and with a simple message that says "We would like for you to buy your fabric from us!". They look "homemade", or some may say "cheap". That's ok, I want them to look that way. Our logo on everything (cards, signs, advertising, website, etc) is simply our business name in simple fonts. Sometimes it's best not to go too fancy with things. It can be misinterpreted as a vain attempt at trying to be something that you're not. We're a little "Mom and Pop" shop, and our customers know it. They know we have a little old store with no employees, and that we do everything ourselves, including our website, bookkeeping, tax reports, remote sales at shows, alterations, mending, and sweeping the floor. (Exception: We pay a guy to wash our store windows once or twice a month for $5 a pop.) Our entire business is designed to be "plain" or "common" in appearance, the way people remember stores being in the old days before everything got so expensive. Not that stores were that way back then, but it's how people remember them being. We believe that most people are looking for economy in a small rural fabric center, and know perfectly well who pays for the "fancy" overhead that they see at some businesses. Our customers take the fancy home with them when they buy our products. The signs are still up on the store fronts around town from the discontinued businesses that brought fancy to the folks around here for 1-3 months before they closed down. For some, a very elaborate card would be very appropriate. For others, a nice professionally produced card would be best. But for some, a simple homemade card can be both economical and effective. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

My wife and I have an independent fabric store, and do alterations and repairs to a variety of fabrics and materials that come in the door. We've experienced some problems that you're describing, mostly on "man-made" materials, but your leather may be acting similar. First of all, most of our repairs involve clothing, so our main go-to machine is a household Singer 401A which is similar to your machine. We tried leather needles and upholstery thread, but didn't have good results on anything. All we got was broken needles and skipped stitches. If a strong thread is required, we go to V92 thread on one of our industrial machines (Consew 225, Singer 20U33, or Singer 29K70). But on seams that don't require great strength or sunlight resistance, we use regular Coats Dual Duty+ thread in a size 11 or 14 needle in the 401A, even on "leathery" or vinyl things. We use the smallest needle possible for the thread that we're using, on all of our machines. We sometimes get items made of a material that seems to be kind of "sticky", and when the needle goes through the fabric, the lower loop stays too tight for the hook to catch it. Your leather may be doing the same thing to you. We found a product called "Sewers Aid" that seems to help with sticky materials. It's a lubricant designed to be used on threads or needles, but we avoid using it on our thread to make sure that we don't make a mess in our tension assemblies. We just use it on our needle, by dunking the needle in the little bottle before we start a seam, and then put some on a tissue to swab some more on the needle as we go along. It doesn't seem to stain anything, but we use it sparingly anyway. We're only making short repair seams, so I don't know if the stuff would be useful in a production setting. The cost would probably be prohibitive, not to mention the hassle of application. It works for us on those rare occasions when we get a sticky seam that starts causing skipped stitches. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Some of the parts shown in the photographs are no longer with the machine. They're the parts circled in red on this attached photo. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I enjoyed the videos of your bicycle pedal powered stand, and think it's a great idea. Do you have any photos of the pedal mounting area? CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I forgot to mention that these old boot patching machines are also handy for reattaching buckles to saddlebags (overuse) and shortening pant legs on insulated overalls (over length). I haven't gotten to use one on any UnderAlls yet.... (over exposed) CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I like them too. I've got two Singer 29K70 machines, one at home and one at the shop. A 1944 model and a 1943 model. And I sew patches on with them too, besides over all repairs like replacing belt straps on camera cases (over width for doorways), reattaching purse straps (overloads), and other repairs brought in from all over.... CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Put a larger handwheel on it. If it's got the basic small disc-type wheel on it that most electric 99s came out with, a larger spoke-type wheel is an easy conversion. The larger wheel will give it a little more momentum, similar to adding a flywheel to a system. Changing wheels is a common conversion, and necessary to create a 99 handcrank using after-market parts that are now available (the handcranks require a spoked wheel for the "finger" to operate the wheel). I know you're not wanting to go handcrank, but the larger wheels have the belt groove like the smaller wheels, and you'll like the larger wheel for those times when you still need to help a little by hand. Best choice is to find an old class 66 machine to get the larger wheel. New spoke-type hand wheels are available (most domestic sewing machine repairmen stock them - $10-15), although I've noticed that some of the guys making them have a little trouble getting the center hole "centered". Most of them work pretty well anyway, but some of them wobble. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

Thanks for bringing me up to speed on the model of my Landis. I did a search for the Landis 1 here, found Kate's post about hers, and then photos of hers on her site. I see what is broken off of my machine (tension bracket), and that makes mine probably just a parts machine. Now I know what the stand looks like too, if I ever see one. Hopefully, I'll find a new home for my Landis 1 before that happens though.... Thanks everyone! CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

I acquired this old Landis machine recently, but I don't know anything about it. It has a needle, and is so heavy duty, it must be a leather stitcher. I don't know what kind of stitch that it makes, or what it may have been used to sew. It has "Landis - St. Louis, MO" on the hand wheel, but I can't see any model or serial numbers on it. Anyone know what model this could be? It was part of a sewing machine collection that I bought, and the collector passed on over 4 years ago, so I don't know where he got it or anything about its history. It operates (I have to tip it to one side to allow the machinery to clear the floor), but I don't know if it sews. It's a heavy rascal, and needs a sturdy stand for it to operate properly. I'll try to find a new home for it, as soon as I can find out what it is. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com

What's the reason for not opening the letter that has the check in it? If you plan to return it to the sender without incurring additional postage, chances are, if it's a scam, there either won't be a return address on the envelope, or the one that's on it is not the scammer's address anyway. You may end up paying additional postage when it gets returned to you "address unknown". You may be the only real person the Post Office can find to pay for the letter traveling through the system back and forth. I'm not sure that's how it would work, but I wouldn't be surprised. Also, it seems like you'll need to see the check to know for sure that your suspicions are correct. And, wouldn't you want to keep the check, not cashing or depositing it of course, to have evidence in-hand if the scammer doesn't leave you alone after you tell them that you're not accepting payment that way? I'd write VOID across the front of it, put both the envelope and check in my drawer, and tell the buyer that the check has been rendered useless. I don't think that you're accepting payment by check until the check is cashed or deposited, are you? I think I'd hang onto it in case I needed to take the situation to the DA. CD in Oklahoma thayerrags.com