Leather Roll Hand-Stitched But How To Do It On A Machine?

[Flattracker]

Hi,

Apologies I've dropped off here for a little while.

I've been trying to figure out which machine to buy to up the construction speed and not waste a ton of money on the wrong machine in the process.

Attached is what I'm making hand stitched but it just takes way too long.

This is sheep leather and from what I've seen trying out various walking foot machines it gets marked up really bad, calf leather as well so no good for appearances!

I think I've slowly realised that doing this on a machine, it'll look different, the gussets for a start are too small I'd imagine even for a cylinder arm. So those will be made differently. To mask up the teeth marks in the leather I'm thinking I can finish it with edge binding/bias binding (I don't even know what it's called!)all around the edge in a waxed canvas of some sort.

Immediate questions are;

1. I'm looking at a Singer 211G156 & 256, would these mark the leather if I was to add a number of channels with the sewing machine for individual pens/brushes etc. If so what's the answer.

2. Would this type of walking foot machine have any issues dealing with a combo of sheep/waxed cotton or calf/cow and waxed cotton.

3. I was initially looking at a Pfaff 1245 & even a Pfaff 335 but wondering if these are over-kill for this thinner leather.

Just found out the image is too large, I'll post this and add the photo very soon.

Much appreciated

[Flattracker]

I am really sorry, this is supposed to be a post about making leather not how to reduce the MB size of a photo. I swear I have just about had enough of Microsoft & Windows 8. Since getting this laptop upgrade (yeah right) I've lost so much time & money just trying to do basic things. Does anyone know how I reduce the MB in a photo in Windows Live Photo Gallery please?

[LTC]

use "paint" to open the picture and then go to "resize" to change it. i usually use 550 to 700 pixels wide and then it's a normal size for forums.

this video shows how to open "paint" in windows 8.

[Flattracker]

Thanks LTC for the heads up. I'm at that point where I don't want anymore hassle from them by upgrading to 8.1 I know it'll fix 2 problems but it'll also screw up 10 other things I've finally figured out with the old system, just had enough of it completely. It's actually reminding me of the British car industry in the 1970/80's.

Hopefully what you'll be seeing now is a copy I've taken from the blog which is low res..... deep breathe!

Edited April 3, 2014 by Flattracker

[LTC]

careful.....i drive a '77 MG Midget from time to time.

you know you can remove their stupid "metro" interface crap if you want to. if you do, it'll look and feel like windows 7 ahain.....

[Andrew Chee]

A pfaff 335 would be the best of the bunch for this. A flat bed can sew this but you would have to sew it with the needle going in from the inside gusset out and since the bottom will never look as good as the top, it won't look as good as if you sewed it from the outside in. Hence the cylinder bed. I don't know exactly what leather you are using but if it's very soft then what I mentioned may be less of an issue.

The leather in the picture doesn't look terribly firm so feet marks may not be a problem if you use smooth presser feet.

Andrew

[Order and Chaos]

Maybe someone else has tried this already, but it sounds like you may want to look in to a modification I'm going to try on my older Singer walking foot machine to see how it works.

I plan to order some new walking feet for the top side that are teflon coated for the top, and replace the feed dog underneath with the silicon rubber version. At a minimum the teflon coated foot up top will slide smoother on the top leather giving more even stich size, and it should reduce the machine marks to smooth lines on the bottom compared to the tank tracks mark the standard sawtooth feed dog underneath leaves.

[Flattracker]

Hi,

Yes this is a really soft sheep leather, it marks up with the slightest look at a finger nail! Smooth pressor feet I guess are a must for it or use a different leather, are non-veg tanned leathers more resistant to machine presoor feet marks, I've only used veg tanned leather for hand stitching.

Thanks LTC I'll give that a try I think over the weekend. I had an MG B many years ago and it only broke down on me once so not bad!