TomWisc

Thanks Wiz! That sounds like a good idea especially with the bulky material I will be working on.

Thanks Tom! Sometimes the obvious solution just escapes me!

Thanks for the suggestions Wiz! I do have the 135x17 needles and bonded polyester thread. I have a friend who makes boat covers and he guided me in the right direction. There is also a local business in Janesville WI, Industrial Sewing Systems, that had the polyester thread and needles. I recently bought a used 11 year old pontoon boat that has the original cover. All the stitching is coming apart around the edges and on the zipper. My first project is to repair this cover with the hopes it will last until I can get a new cover. Without a large work table I will be doing this in my driveway with the hopes I don't sew myself inside the cover! Pretty clumsy to work with all that material but I think if I take it slow I can do it. Since I don't have reverse on this machine I am not sure how difficult back stitching will be just because of the volume of material I will have to turn around. Just wondering if there is any other way to lock the stitch without trying to do a back stitch?

OMG! It works! I am new to sewing machines. I adjusted the bobbin case to fit in the groove on the throat plate and it works great! I just tested on a few pieces of leather and she just hums! I have a servo motor and the prior owner installed a large pulley on the sewing machine so I can run very slow which is what I wanted. Aside from leather work, I have to repair an old boat cover and this is going to work great for that. Thanks for all your help!

I am having problems with my Singer 211W155. I got the machine a few months ago and am just now getting around to trying it out. When I first got the machine I manually operated it for several stitches sewing a couple pieces of leather together and it worked fine. Now that I have it mounted on a table with servo motor I am having trouble with the upper thread wrapping around the bobbin case. I am still operating the machine manually and no luck. I have adjusted the tension, changed the needle, rethread several times. Although I haven't adjusted the timing, it appears to be good. Then I noticed the bobbin case moves about freely. I tried to upload a video but had no luck so I uploaded several pictures showing different positions of the bobbin case that I moved around by hand. So my question is, is the bobbin case supposed to move around freely or if not, how do I secure it in place and exactly where is it supposed to be located? Thanks in advance for all your help.

Thanks Wiz. A wealth of information from you is greatly appreciated. I have an old standard sewing machine that has been in storage for many years. I will give that one a try rather than the leather machine. Thanks Mike for the link.

I know this is not leather related but I also know you guys are the ones who can answer my question. I am getting ready to make face masks, not N95, but better than a bandana. I hope you will help me with some answers. I could look it up but trying to get going NOW. I have a Seiko STH8BLD3 sewing machine. All I have is leather needles. I have SCHMENZ needles. I want to order fabric needles from Amazon to sew fabric. I am going to use 69 thread because I have lots of it. What needles should I order to do fabric for face masks. Our ER nurses need these. Thanks for your help...

Me too

I am trying to find the serial number on this Singer 211W115 that I got a couple days ago. Also wondering if silver is the original color. The machine has the Singer model number tag with a Singer logo tag above the model number tag. Can anyone help me with the location of the serial number?

Thanks for the link to the parts manual. I'm sure it will help a lot. I looked up the machine age in the Singer serial number index and it looks like it was built in 1911.

So I have been checking out the Singer 211W155 tonight. Spending a lot of time looking at stuff on this forum and also just general machine cleaning. As I turn the pulley everything moves so smoothly. It is not connected to a motor. So I thought why not try to sew a few stitches by moving the pulley by hand. The machine came with a leather needle. I put some 138 nylon thread through the needle and stitched 2 pieces of bison 6 oz together. It worked flawlessly. I changed the stitch size from 6 spi to 10 spi and worked fine. When I picked up the machine it had 2 internal parts in a bag taped to the machine. They look old and worn. Why would someone do that? So being the eternal optimist, I thought maybe the prior owner had the machine repaired, and these were the parts that were replaced. So tomorrow I will clean the dust, etc. off the machine and oil everything. I guess time to price a table and servo motor! I do have a local industrial machine dealer so I may bring it to him to go over it also.

Thanks Bob. I think first thing is to get educated as to how they are supposed to work. I will check the forum for what info I can find and get whatever manuals are available for these machines.

The adventure begins! Got both machines for $80. I have to unload them and check them out. I will take some pictures later or tomorrow.

Thanks for the link, machinehead, very interesting. Unfortunately he does not have the table for the machine, only the machine head, but still sounds like it is worth giving it a look.

Thanks for the replies. Wiz, the 43-5 has a model number tag that says 43-5. He sent a picture of that. So could that be a 42-5 with the 43-5 tag? It is a cylinder arm machine. I am not sure if needles and bobbins are included. I may go look at the machines today but right now, in sunny wisc. it is 10 below zero! Brrr!