Signer 99 Treddle....help Please?

[pintail55]

I have a small leather holster company and make custom leather holsters and have been stitching everything by hand. I have been getting pretty back logged and am thinking a machine may help speed things up a bit. My mom has a Signer 99 treddle machine that used to be her Grandmas that she wants to get rid of. If I added a motor to this machine would it be able to go through two layers of 5-7 oz leather. I have no idea where to start with this and have no experience with sewing machines. My wife is a very accomplished sewer and could help me but I dont want to take the machine if it wouldn't work. Thanks in advance.

Dave

[cdthayer]

I doubt that it will do the holster jobs for you, but if it's a Singer Model 99 in a treadle, you ought to latch onto it just to have the machine. Don't see many of those....

CD in Oklahoma

[Wizcrafts]

This is not the machine you need to sew holsters. Consider its shortfalls in these critical areas.

1. The maximum thickness that can be sewn is about 1/4 inch of compressed material.
   
2. The longest stitch length this machine produces is about 6 or 7 to the inch, into thin material. It might be only 8/inch at 14 ounces of veg-tan (almost a quarter inch!).
   
3. It has bottom feed only, with a flat foot that will drag the top grain, reducing the available stitch length.
   
4. The presser foot spring is not made to hold down this much leather. If the leather lifts with the ascending needle there will be skipped stitches and bent/broken needles, plus a wad of thread on the bottom and maybe a jammed bobbin shuttle.
   
5. The top tension beehive spring is light duty, allowing for better control of using thin cotton or polyester thread in dresses, shirts and pants.
   
6. The thickest thread this machine can properly tension is #69 bonded thread, which is too small and weak for holsters.
   
7. The largest needle commonly available for home machines is a #18 (good for #69 thread)
   
8. A 14 ounce pancake holster should be sewn with at least #138 bonded thread, with #207 being more secure and better looking. This machine cannot come anywhere near handling those thread sizes.
   
9. The treadle will probably slip as you try sewing almost a quarter inch of leather. That means it probably won't be able to punch through 14 ounces of veg-tan leather without help from your hand on the hand wheel.
   
10. The take-up lever is thin steel and all the moving shafts and gears inside the head are designed for the pressure of sewing shirts and pants, not hard leather.
    

These are just some highlights of what that machine will be up against, trying to sew holsters. You will end up with using undersized thread, skipped stitches and thread wads on the bottom. If you jam the shuttle with top thread that didn't get picked up properly, it will knock the poor machine out of time.

Please read my sticky topic in the top of this section of the forum, where I explain the differences in drive mechanisms and what type of machine you really need to sew leather.

[pintail55]

Thanks for the help. I was hoping to not have to spend a lot of $$$ and hoping this would do the trick. Ohh well the hunt for a machine has begun.

[Wizcrafts]

Don't be discouraged. Save your money until you can afford a real leather sewing machine. It will serve you well for years to come. For most holsters, this suggests either a Juki TSC-441 clone or an Adler 205 or clone.