New To Sewing, Some Industrial Machine Help Needed

[Bennyc45]

Hi guys. I'm totally new to sewing all together, yet alone leather. My aim is to fully retrim my car interior and potentially create a side line business from it.

I bought a pfaff 463 industrial machine which is great but I can't get it to sew leather! It sews fabric perfectly but when I put a piece of leather in the thread doesn't catch the bobbin thread. I have tried to many times bit can't get it to work.

This is probably a silly question but as I said, I'm new to this so any help very much appreciated.

Thank you

[Wizcrafts]

Hi guys. I'm totally new to sewing all together, yet alone leather. My aim is to fully retrim my car interior and potentially create a side line business from it.

I bought a pfaff 463 industrial machine which is great but I can't get it to sew leather! It sews fabric perfectly but when I put a piece of leather in the thread doesn't catch the bobbin thread. I have tried to many times bit can't get it to work.

This is probably a silly question but as I said, I'm new to this so any help very much appreciated.

Thank you

Your Pfaff 463 is a high speed garment sewing machine. The feed dogs are too small to pull real leather through, unless they are raise all the way up. The top pressure spring is insufficient for holding down veg-tan leather. It is capable of sewing garment or upholstery grade leather if you do the following things.

• Thread it with #69 bonded nylon thread, maximum.
• Change the pressor foot to either a nylon, or roller foot. You may also be able to purchase a 3 piece roller foot conversion system.
• Raise the feed dog up higher, to about 1/16" above the throat plate feed slots.
• Change the motor speed to a much slower RPM, like around 300 stitches per minute (5 per second).
• Set the stitch length to 5 to the inch.
• Increase the pressor foot pressure to maximum, after installing a roller equipped pressor foot.
• Make sure there is plenty of oil in the machine and in the oil pan.
• Install a #18 or #20 (metric 110 or 120) leather point needle, of the correct needle system for that Pfaff machine.

Even with all of these changes, the most you will be able to sew is about 1/8" to 3/16" of soft leather, with #69 thread.