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!

I am not familiar with old Singer machines but I thought I would throw this out to you all. I have not seen these machines yet so I have limited info from the seller who knows nothing about the machines. He apparently got them from cleaning out an old house being put up for sale. Local sale of Singer 43-5, head only, looks rough, wheel only turns about 1/2 way around. No table. The other machine is a Singer 211W155. From the pictures I can't tell much about the machine except it doesn't look too beat up. I don't know if it has a motor or table. Just a picture of the model number and machine top. Like I said, I do not know much about these machines, or old Singer machines for that matter, so please excuse me if I am not giving much info to go on. He wants $120 OBO for both. Is it worth messing with?

I agree with Chief Filipino, looks hand made. And that brings up another concern, were the tree climbing spurs that he has made correctly? I would guess the liability is the big issue. Signing a release sounds like a good idea but if he is injured, or he lends them to another person who is not an experienced "tree squirrel", a signed waiver will not really protect you in court. Tree climbing is a pretty dangerous activity and he should buy a new set of spurs and keep you out of it. If you want to do something for him, make him a belt.

I am making some men's slipppers for me and my adult sons. I will be using deer hide as a liner on the inside of the slippers.

I have used kangaroo for a few wallets and really love it! I have not made a blade sheath so I don't have any suggestions for using kangaroo for that. While making a wallet I found if I make the pieces a little bit bigger than the final wallet will be, it allows a little wiggle room while glueing and stitching. Then when everything is stitched I use a round knife to cut through all the layers of kangaroo to give me a perfect edge .I am just trimming the edges, ever so slightly, to be exactly even. I think if I used a regular knife to cut the kangaroo it might pull. Then I used edge paint to finish the edges without having to do any sanding.

Maybe laser?

I have been following this thread and was thinking of making my dog a collar. What do you all think of using deer hide for inside of the collar?

Thanks guys for your responses. I will have to look up a speedy stitcher to see how they are used. I don't know anything about the person who originally used it but it is neat to find something from back in the 1920 era.

I posted this a few days ago and got no response but several views. I know lots of people do not look at the forum every day so I thought I would bring it back up in case someone sees it that knows what it is used for? Thanks

That looks great! Going to be some intricate tooling. Please post your finished work, I'm sure it will be impressive.

Here are the other pictures...