Hello. I have found this forum very useful over the past few months while setting up my workshop. I still havn't managed to solve my current problem so I hope you can help me.
I am sewing 2.6/2.8mm veg tan leather onto sheepskin and my walking foot machine does this quite happily with bonded nylon or polyester metric size 40/ tex size #70 and needle size 18. I would like to use a thicker thread and have a cone of metric size 20 tex/ #138 bonded nylon, and have bought a plethora of needles size 22, 23, 24 with various leather points. My machine can sew fine with these needles and the thicker thread on only the sheepskin, but is not so happy when on the thick leather too. The thread breaks and the machine judders. I did tighten the belt today, and that has improved the situation a little bit. I’m sewing really slowly and have tried different thread tensions.
Is there anything else I can try, or is my machine just not up to sewing through the thick material with a bigger needle?
Thank you!