Is This One Worth A Look?

[South Forty]

Thanks Wizcrafts!

Good to know this old machine might work just fine for what I'm playing with...

I took a look on ebay and there are quite a few welting/piping feet there, all for around the $10 mark, which is great, so I have a next question:

What SIZE welting foot will I need? What I've been working at now is to cut 1/2" wide strips of my leather, roll it over and sew, so do I need a 1/2|" welting foot or a 1/4" ?

[Wizcrafts]

Welts, or piping have a rope-like cord inside them, to give a solid pipe result. If you use 3/16 inch diameter cord, wrapped with 1/16 inch thick leather, a 1/4 inch piping foot is a perfect match. If you try to sew with a piping foot and there is no cord inside the package, the material tends to simply compress flat, or semi-rounded.

You may or may not know how a piping foot works, so I'll explain it.

A piping foot has a rounded radius ground into one side of the foot, with the needle hole immediately next to the end of the radius. The rounded portion rides on top of the covered piping cord. If the foot has been properly matched to the diameter of the covered cording, the needle will hit very close to one side of the covered pipe. If the foot size is to wide, the needle is too far away from the piping. If the size is too small, the needle may go into the piping, rather than next to it.

If you have a walking foot machine, your piping foot is made in two parts: the narrow inside radius foot and wide outside radius foot. The needle hole is inside the inside foot, to one side of its cutout area.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Wizcrafts