cgmartin Report post Posted February 22, 2014 I bought a Juki DLR-415-5 today for $50. A glove making factory in town shut down and the owner of the building was clearing stuff out. I don't know much about it yet and I was wondering if anyone here knew what thickness of leather it could handle? I also have to get a new motor because it has an industrial 3 phase one, does anyone know about that? I'm pretty new to all of this, so far I've only done hand sewing with leather- I hope this was a good buy! Thanks in advance! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wizcrafts Report post Posted February 22, 2014 It is a very, very, high speed garment sewing machine. It can sew very thin leather with very thin thread and slim needles. I'm guessing about 3 or 4 layers of garment leather, using a titanium coated #16 or #18 needle. Of course, you would have to change the presser foot to a Teflon or roller foot to sew sticky leather. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cgmartin Report post Posted February 23, 2014 Thanks for the info- so it's pretty much no good for anything too thick I guess. For the price I figured it was too good to pass up, at the very least I can resell it. I'm not sure how complicated it's going to be to change the motor out and all that. Anyways thanks, I have had a really hard time finding any information about it online. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wizcrafts Report post Posted February 23, 2014 The machine has an integrated oil pump and must spin at about 3,000 rpm or more to distribute the oil to all the bearings. That works out to about 50 stitches per second. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Anne Bonnys Locker Report post Posted February 27, 2014 The machine has an integrated oil pump and must spin at about 3,000 rpm or more to distribute the oil to all the bearings. That works out to about 50 stitches per second. Wiz, a basic rule of bearing design is that essentially comes down to - the faster you run it the shorter the bearing life - and from memory it is based on the square of the RPM. If you cut the speed down to 800rpm then the load is an order of magnitude less and it would take decades to destroy the bearings on light use even without oil! It is not something I would suggest for a production machine but for a $50 hobby machine where the user can squirt some oil in every 8 hours of sewing it will never be a problem. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cgmartin Report post Posted February 28, 2014 Wow, thank you both for the valuable insight! So in other words there may be hope for this machine after all? I'm planning on taking it to a sewing machine repair place here in town and get it looked at, maybe they can help me figure out how to swap out the motor and whatnot. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
