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Hi Luke and Ponygirl,

The 31 is drop feed only, just like a regular sewing machine. The feed dogs do all the movement of the material. Drop feed machines don't like to climb hills or cross thick seams, but for flat work they are a nice little machine but limited for uneven work.

On needle sizes, the thread should move freely through the eye of the needle, absolutely no drag.

On bobbin thread, 69 is about it, maybe 92, but I don't think it was designed for 69 even, probably 46 and down. It is a tailoring machine, not a leather machine, but for lite stuff it will work. Getting enough tension to horse big thread through veg tan is not somewhere that machine will go willingly.

Hi Art,

I agree with you completely on what you are saying about the 31-15/31K15, they were indeed the, almost, archetypal tailoring machine and would once have been used in most high street tailors and dressmakers shops. However, they were also quite popular with shoe repairers for light leather work (at least here in the UK anyway!) and were often found along side the ubiquitous Singer 29K 'patcher'. Back in the 1960s my father only used three different machines, a Singer 45K56 for very heavy work, a 29K for most other things and the 31K15 for light (lite?) leather repair work. As I said previously, my mother used this same 31 for making leather coats and jackets (arguabley, I suppose, this could be classed as tailoring!), as well as the flat work on ladies bags before closing them with the 29K.

Also, as you say, they are pretty useless at passing over 'lumps', but could manage, just about, if you lifted the presser foot slightly just as the 'lump' in the seam was reached. When we started making larger bags, we switched over to using the Singer 31K47, which, as I'm sure you know, is also a drop feed machine, but has the added advantage of 'alternating' presser feet, which helped a lot with 'lumps' and smooth surfaces, although they weren't as good as a true 'walking foot' machine.

Steve

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