Old leatherworking machines - Show and tell

[oldtimer]

Hi Oldtimer

this is a Cementing Machine. Primarily for putting contact adhesive on Soles to be bonded to the Uppers. The Tank on rt holds the Glue and it is fed evenly to the Rollers on the left which then spread it evenly on the Sole as it is fed through.

The other Machine is a Sole Skiver less the Blade.

Kindest Regards.

Jim Saddler.

Thank´s for the info, Jim.

Never heard of a glueing machine, I had hoped that it was a motorized splitter. At least I can sleep now, knowing what it is.

Will have a look at the sewing machines wednesday.

Thank´s / Knut

[Laurie]

wow, killer pictures ya'll!! I took time off work (construction work) a few years ago to work in an old established family (3rd generation) boot/shoe repair shop in Baton Rouge, so I could learn their machines. It was a great learning experience, they have giagantic old inner & outter sole stiching machines. Wish I had the picts of those huge monsters!

[19th century bootmaker]

wow, killer pictures ya'll!! I took time off work (construction work) a few years ago to work in an old established family (3rd generation) boot/shoe repair shop in Baton Rouge, so I could learn their machines. It was a great learning experience, they have giagantic old inner & outter sole stiching machines. Wish I had the picts of those huge monsters!

Are they still around? I would love to meet them. I have a working museum of old machines. Do you have contact information?

[wassomeoneelse]

Are they still around? I would love to meet them. I have a working museum of old machines. Do you have contact information?

Hey! I live in Baton Rouge. If it is the shop off of Sherwood Forest and Coursey Blvd., I would be glad to go over there and talk to them about taking some pictures. Just let me know if that is it.

Take care,

Bryan

[bobkiss]

Here's three old machines I use regularly.

The first is a leather cutting/skiving machine. It says "AMERICAN" and "ST. LOUIS" on it, but other than that, I don't know much about this machine. I don't use it a lot for cutting leather because it leaves a cut with ridges on it, but I love using it for skiving. One crank of the handle, and the leather is perfectly skived to a feather edge.

The next picture is my Singer 29K60 sewing machine. It was built in Scotland in 1946. I use it for quick sewing of simple lightweight leather projects. I don't use it as often as I might, because I enjoy handsewing.

The third picture is what used to be a hand-cranked grinding machine. I bought it at a second-hand shop for $15.00. I took the grinding stone off and replaced it with 6 inch diameter leather discs which I cut out from scraps of saddle skirting and rivetted together. I applied jeweler's rouge to the disc and it works perfectly for honing knives and other cutters.

Hi,

I have a Singer similar to yours, mine is a 29k4, I also have a hand grinder and I'm going to steal your idea to replace the stone with a leather wheel, what a great idea! I also have the skiving/cutting machine, mine is made by Landis, I have never used it, I don't have a blade for it, do you know where I could by one?

[MikeCahill]

attached are some pictures of a frobana outsole stitcher, I'm trying to get this working, but I'm having problems setting it up, a copy of the instructions handbook would be useful, can anyone help? it's not in very good condition, is it worth the effort?

[amuckart]

Hi Mike,

attached are some pictures of a frobana outsole stitcher, I'm trying to get this working, but I'm having problems setting it up, a copy of the instructions handbook would be useful, can anyone help? it's not in very good condition, is it worth the effort?

This might be something for a new topic altogether.

That's entirely recognisable as what turned into the Frobana Gritzner stitcher. Interesting to see what's the same and what's changed. It could probably be treadle driven with a big enough flywheel.

I've got a manual for the Gritzner, just haven't had time to get it online sorry. I'll try and do that this weekend.

It doesn't look all that bad really. My Gritzner looked terrible when I got my hands on it. I went after it with a spray bottle of undiluted industrial citrus cleaner and a waterblaster and now it looks great. Still drops the occasional stitch though :/

If that were mine I'd remove it from the wood and thoroughly clean it then scrub the lightly rusted bits with oil and grey scotch brite. The nickel plating is probably compromised where rust has gotten under it but that shouldn't affect the mechanics of the machine.

When it comes to old stitchers the up side of this machine is that you can still get needles for it. The down side is that they cost about 8-euro each but when they work they work very nicely.

[MikeCahill]

It didn't look like this when I got it, I took it down to a local garage, soaked it in de-greaser, then pressure washed it top and bottom followed by a tin of WD40, and oiling the oilpoints, which were helpfully painted red, the nickel is blown in places, and little things like the tiny screws that hold the plate protecting the needle have been lost, and it has been roughly riveted in place with what looks like copper wire! I've got needles, paid £5 each for them, It just needs a bit of TLC and setting up, it keeps snapping the thread, but that might be me threading it wrong. Would love a copy of the handbook. The old leatherwork machine section is the first place I come to when I enter the site, thats why its here, I did put a question in the sewing machine section, but I miss titled the thread so got no answers

Cheers mike

Hi Mike,

This might be something for a new topic altogether.

That's entirely recognisable as what turned into the Frobana Gritzner stitcher. Interesting to see what's the same and what's changed. It could probably be treadle driven with a big enough flywheel.

I've got a manual for the Gritzner, just haven't had time to get it online sorry. I'll try and do that this weekend.

It doesn't look all that bad really. My Gritzner looked terrible when I got my hands on it. I went after it with a spray bottle of undiluted industrial citrus cleaner and a waterblaster and now it looks great. Still drops the occasional stitch though :/

If that were mine I'd remove it from the wood and thoroughly clean it then scrub the lightly rusted bits with oil and grey scotch brite. The nickel plating is probably compromised where rust has gotten under it but that shouldn't affect the mechanics of the machine.

When it comes to old stitchers the up side of this machine is that you can still get needles for it. The down side is that they cost about 8-euro each but when they work they work very nicely.

It didn't look like this when I got it, I took it down to a local garage, soaked it in de-greaser, then pressure washed it top and bottom followed by a tin of WD40, and oiling the oilpoints, which were helpfully painted red, the nickel is blown in places, and little things like the tiny screws that hold the plate protecting the needle have been lost, and it has been roughly riveted in place with what looks like copper wire! I've got needles, paid £5 each for them, It just needs a bit of TLC and setting up, it keeps snapping the thread, but that might be me threading it wrong. Would love a copy of the handbook. The old leatherwork machine section is the first place I come to when I enter the site, thats why its here, I did put a question in the sewing machine section, but I miss titled the thread so got no answers

Cheers mike

Hi Mike,

This might be something for a new topic altogether.

That's entirely recognisable as what turned into the Frobana Gritzner stitcher. Interesting to see what's the same and what's changed. It could probably be treadle driven with a big enough flywheel.

I've got a manual for the Gritzner, just haven't had time to get it online sorry. I'll try and do that this weekend.

It doesn't look all that bad really. My Gritzner looked terrible when I got my hands on it. I went after it with a spray bottle of undiluted industrial citrus cleaner and a waterblaster and now it looks great. Still drops the occasional stitch though :/

If that were mine I'd remove it from the wood and thoroughly clean it then scrub the lightly rusted bits with oil and grey scotch brite. The nickel plating is probably compromised where rust has gotten under it but that shouldn't affect the mechanics of the machine.

When it comes to old stitchers the up side of this machine is that you can still get needles for it. The down side is that they cost about 8-euro each but when they work they work very nicely.

[amuckart]

It didn't look like this when I got it, I took it down to a local garage, soaked it in de-greaser, then pressure washed it top and bottom followed by a tin of WD40, and oiling the oilpoints, which were helpfully painted red, the nickel is blown in places, and little things like the tiny screws that hold the plate protecting the needle have been lost, and it has been roughly riveted in place with what looks like copper wire! I've got needles, paid £5 each for them, It just needs a bit of TLC and setting up, it keeps snapping the thread, but that might be me threading it wrong. Would love a copy of the handbook. The old leatherwork machine section is the first place I come to when I enter the site, thats why its here, I did put a question in the sewing machine section, but I miss titled the thread so got no answers

Cheers mike

It looks like it'll work Ok in the condition it's in. If you wanted to clean off the rust you're looking at something like evaporust - most other things will blow all the rest of the nickel off. As well as the red marked oiling points there are several covered oil holes that go down into axles etc, they have little flip-top covers on them. I'd go after the cogs with a decent oil as well. What I did with my Gritzner was liberally oiled every moving surface I could see with CRC Syntex, but I don't know if you can get that in the UK.

I think you do have it threaded wrong. Take the thread out of the wax pot, through the channel in the post, around the tension wheel, up through the eye in the wire arm and straight into the takeup lever instead of going through the bits on the side like you have it. The holes in those are probably spannering points rather than thread path. If it keeps breaking thread after that, take a little tension off the thread spool - that's the main point the upper tension gets set in these machines. You should also either use prewaxed thread or have some oil in the wax pot, I put pure neatsfoot oil in mine for now until I can get some sellari's liquid wax. The other thing to do is polish the heck out of every point in the thread path.

Hope that helps.

[MikeCahill]

It looks like it'll work Ok in the condition it's in. If you wanted to clean off the rust you're looking at something like evaporust - most other things will blow all the rest of the nickel off. As well as the red marked oiling points there are several covered oil holes that go down into axles etc, they have little flip-top covers on them. I'd go after the cogs with a decent oil as well. What I did with my Gritzner was liberally oiled every moving surface I could see with CRC Syntex, but I don't know if you can get that in the UK.

I think you do have it threaded wrong. Take the thread out of the wax pot, through the channel in the post, around the tension wheel, up through the eye in the wire arm and straight into the takeup lever instead of going through the bits on the side like you have it. The holes in those are probably spannering points rather than thread path. If it keeps breaking thread after that, take a little tension off the thread spool - that's the main point the upper tension gets set in these machines. You should also either use prewaxed thread or have some oil in the wax pot, I put pure neatsfoot oil in mine for now until I can get some sellari's liquid wax. The other thing to do is polish the heck out of every point in the thread path.

Hope that helps.

the thread appears to be being cut by the blade that cuts a slit for the lower thread to sit in and also moves the job along one stitch, I would really like a copy of the handbook,

cheers

Mike