Buying Keestar Sewing Machine 441 Directly From China..

[korokan]

This is a 441 clone sewing machine directly from China and is $1000 less than the ones sold in the US. Planning on buying it directly ffrom China. Any suggestions will be welcome. Many thanks.

[Joon1911]

I'm a novice at this game, so my input is limited. I just purchased a Cobra Class 4 from Steve about 3 weeks ago and am getting it squared away. The biggest thing I could think of as worth the price differential is whether the machine will be set up and timed from the factory or whether you will have to do these things yourself? Also do you have the knowledge and skill base to do all the maintenance without any real outside support?

If you are experienced and can answer yes to those questions I could see the Keestar being a good deal. That being said, for someone like me, I value the after purchase service enough to pay the premium price. It gives me peace of mind that a year from now if I need help figuring out something that I can call Steve up and ask the question. That's also why I didn't buy a machine on the secondary markets like eBay and the trade channels here on the forum.

Hope that is helpful.

[sheathmaker]

I will second JohnOK's post word for word. If you have the mechanical knowledge and expertise to set it up for your type sewing then it could be a good deal , albeit potential warranty issues could be a major pain should any arise. These are not tuned up to your specs at the factory. Steve and David at Cobra are my choice.

Paul

[CowboyBob]

I'm almost certain that shipping will be from $7-900 on top of this price you will be very close to getting one here that is tested & ready to go.Also does this include a servo motor & speed reducer?

[Constabulary]

Nice price and worth to think about it

BUT - on top of the above mentioned expect to pay shipping + import tax + vat + traveling to the next harbor if they ship it by vessel and not by air.

[Wizcrafts]

Expect to spend a day going over the machine, tightening screws, adjusting the hook position and timing, setting the needle bar, adjusting the ratio and position of the presser feet, adjusting the feed dog, oiling it, setting it up on a table, connecting parts, belts and chains. This assumes it ships with the motor, reducer, belts and table and work light.

Also, if you are getting a motor, make sure it is a 120 volt motor.

One other thing to look into is whether you would be getting a standard 441 blanket presser foot set, which has teeth on the bottom and is huge, or if it ships with what we use here and call Harness feet. If you have to purchase them, add another $100 or so, and more if you want left toe and right toe feet. The harness feet are not compatible with the blanket feet that normally ship on 441 machines from China.

[amuckart]

I bought a machine direct from China. It was a Hightex brand, which is what Cowboy machines are called outside of the US.

The short version is this: If you are buying this for use in a business, buy one from a local well-respected shop who will set it up and support & service it. Buying direct from China is a Bad Idea if you need the machine up, running, and making money in a specific timeframe.

For me, as a reasonably mechanically competent amateur who has torn down and re-built other machines, it was worthwhile. The cost was around half of what it would have cost me to get a machine from Cowboy or Cobra shipped to New Zealand, but if I were in the USA it is not something I would consider.

I bought via a reseller here, so as a private individual not a business I had the benefit of NZ's strong consumer protection laws if it went wrong, but even so It was almost 5 months before I had all the parts I needed. Because of screw-ups with the shipping I didn't get the correct motor and speed reducer with the machine and it took ages for them to arrive.

It took me a full day to clean the shipping grease off, assemble the stand and table and get the machine mounted and oiled. There were no instructions at all, and the assembly of the table was non-obvious (which is to say that the holes drilled in it matched neither the machine nor the stand, and I ended up building a new table).

After that it took me many hours to get the machine timed, feeding properly, sewing in the same holes in reverse that it did forwards, and so on.

I was lucky, my machine wasn't missing any bits, came with all the feet I needed, and didn't require a total teardown and rebuild like the Hightex 441 another NZer on this forum bought.

Even without any major things going wrong with my machine mechanically, I would have been completely screwed without the Juki 441 engineer's manual. Even with that it was tricky getting the machine set up because the timing marks the Juki manual references don't exist on my machine.

If you're comfortable with tearing down and re-building walking foot sewing machines and you know how to time them from scratch and you have the time and tools to do so, then getting a machine direct from China can work, but it's a gamble. You can't count on getting any kind of support from the factory, and as Wiz has pointed out getting the additional harness feet is expensive and they aren't guaranteed to fit the specific machine you end up with.

[Kevin]

I'll just add this, I bought a counterfeit guitar directly from China and my computer hasn't been right ever since. I have Norton 360 and I've run dozens of scans and not found anything.

[Wizcrafts]

Is the guitar playing Asian scales instead of Western? That would 'splain it Kevin. Your 'puter acquired the Asian Scale Trojan, via an interstitial proximity coinferrence between the cracked guitar (counterfeit, from hack-haven China) and the dial-up modem lingering deep within the motherboard chipsets.

[billybopp]

If you think that's bad Kevin. Your computer is now infected with a virus will cause your computer to hack some secured networks sending the info back to China. You can expect the FBI to knock at your door any day now.

[Wizcrafts]

If Kevin is really unlucky, the Feds will confiscate his counterfeit Asian Scale playing guitar and send it to Langley for reverse engineering. It probably contains the Conficker Worm.

[Chief31794]

If Kevin is really unlucky, the Feds will confiscate his counterfeit Asian Scale playing guitar and send it to Langley for reverse engineering. It probably contains the Conficker Worm.

I haven't had that problem, but I play a US made 74 Martin D-28, I did have a representative from the Martin company try to confiscate it after they heard me play, when that didn't work they offered to buy me any of their competitors guitars if I'd just quit playing theirs in public. I'm not sure what all that was about! LOL.

Chief

[korokan]

Thanks guys for all your valuable and honest opinions. I did not even think that a 441 has to be adjusted to sew leather or other materials. I always thought that since it is a 441 , it will automatically sew harness since I presumed they are built to do so. It never occur to my mind that you will have to adjust the timing of this machine to sew your harness leather. I will have to be a mechanical engineer to understand those technicalities which I am not.

[korokan]

I bought a machine direct from China. It was a Hightex brand, which is what Cowboy machines are called outside of the US.

The short version is this: If you are buying this for use in a business, buy one from a local well-respected shop who will set it up and support & service it. Buying direct from China is a Bad Idea if you need the machine up, running, and making money in a specific timeframe.

For me, as a reasonably mechanically competent amateur who has torn down and re-built other machines, it was worthwhile. The cost was around half of what it would have cost me to get a machine from Cowboy or Cobra shipped to New Zealand, but if I were in the USA it is not something I would consider.

I bought via a reseller here, so as a private individual not a business I had the benefit of NZ's strong consumer protection laws if it went wrong, but even so It was almost 5 months before I had all the parts I needed. Because of screw-ups with the shipping I didn't get the correct motor and speed reducer with the machine and it took ages for them to arrive.

It took me a full day to clean the shipping grease off, assemble the stand and table and get the machine mounted and oiled. There were no instructions at all, and the assembly of the table was non-obvious (which is to say that the holes drilled in it matched neither the machine nor the stand, and I ended up building a new table).

After that it took me many hours to get the machine timed, feeding properly, sewing in the same holes in reverse that it did forwards, and so on.

I was lucky, my machine wasn't missing any bits, came with all the feet I needed, and didn't require a total teardown and rebuild like the Hightex 441 another NZer on this forum bought.

Even without any major things going wrong with my machine mechanically, I would have been completely screwed without the Juki 441 engineer's manual. Even with that it was tricky getting the machine set up because the timing marks the Juki manual references don't exist on my machine.

If you're comfortable with tearing down and re-building walking foot sewing machines and you know how to time them from scratch and you have the time and tools to do so, then getting a machine direct from China can work, but it's a gamble. You can't count on getting any kind of support from the factory, and as Wiz has pointed out getting the additional harness feet is expensive and they aren't guaranteed to fit the specific machine you end up with.

When you ssy ,it took hours to ge tthe machine times, are you stating that the machine come in untimed and that you have go inside the machine to mechanically change the timing?

[Wizcrafts]

When you ssy ,it took hours to ge tthe machine times, are you stating that the machine come in untimed and that you have go inside the machine to mechanically change the timing?

Having discussed this with some of our dealers, the answer is yes. 441 clones require several hours of dealer setup time before they sew and can be sold. They are not ready to use out of the box. They are not marketed to end buyers, but to competent dealers who understand the ins and outs of adjusting the hook, needle bar, presser feet, feed mechanism and lifter system. Buyers take it for granted that all the dealer has to do is unbox the parts and bolt them together. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

[korokan]

I posted this isue cause I saw the pricing on these machine way too cheap and nobody dared to buy directly from them in the US. Yet we all new that this are the same machine that we buy in the US locally. There could be tons of isues that goes with it why people dont buy directly from China. One reasons I knew is that one Prussia Company in China wont sell it to me directly out of respect to the American company Weaver. They instead refer me to Weaver.

But there are other Chinese Companies who would sell me directly . Thanks again for your opinions. Hope one of you guy scheck these companies in Alibaba.

[Wizcrafts]

I watched my current CB4500 being set up and adjusted. It involved doing things I never would have suspected needed to be done. I am grateful to the dealer, Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines, for taking care of the legwork for me.

Another thing. My first servo motor quit after one week of use. This was the old push button kind. I placed one phone call to Bob Kovar and a new motor arrived the next business day. Try that on a direct from China machine.

Dealer support should not be taken for granted or ignored. If you need parts, accessories or advice and didn't buy from an authorized dealer, you better learn to speak Chinese and wait for the next slow boat from China to arrive and clear Customs.

And pray your guitar doesn't get hacked ;-)

[korokan]

Having discussed this with some of our dealers, the answer is yes. 441 clones require several hours of dealer setup time before they sew and can be sold. They are not ready to use out of the box. They are not marketed to end buyers, but to competent dealers who understand the ins and outs of adjusting the hook, needle bar, presser feet, feed mechanism and lifter system. Buyers take it for granted that all the dealer has to do is unbox the parts and bolt them together. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Why dont the dealer tell the company that market them to adjust it before they send to the US. This machine was designed for one function only to sew heavy duty thick leather. The reason it is marketed here is because for that one and only reason. Thatt is really hard to understnad why they would selll it not set for what it should be marketed for. If I order tons of machine from these people, I will demand it to set it right before I will recieve them. or before they make the delivery. Imagine how much money you spend just adjusting this thing before you sell them. It just dont sound right to me.

Dont these dealers ask for the samples of what the machine can do before they buy them. That is really a bad purchase f you still have to adjust the machine when these people from the factories can adjust the machine before they deliver them. That would be the last time I am gonna buy from them or would even not accept it.

[Wizcrafts]

Now you are beginning to Grok what our dealers go through on our behalf, to deliver an affordable leather sewing machine.

[amuckart]

When you ssy ,it took hours to ge tthe machine times, are you stating that the machine come in untimed and that you have go inside the machine to mechanically change the timing?

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Out of the box it had been assembled, but that's it. It wasn't timed and the feed was out of sync.

[korokan]

Now you are beginning to Grok what our dealers go through on our behalf, to deliver an affordable leather sewing machine.

It would be my biggest mistake if I dont get a CB4500 , after listening to you guys..

[amuckart]

Hi Korokan,

I think it's worth saying up-front that it's really great that you're asking these questions. Industrial machinery is a whole different world with different rules that aren't obvious until you've been there and seen them.

Why dont the dealer tell the company that market them to adjust it before they send to the US. This machine was designed for one function only to sew heavy duty thick leather. The reason it is marketed here is because for that one and only reason. Thatt is really hard to understnad why they would selll it not set for what it should be marketed for. If I order tons of machine from these people, I will demand it to set it right before I will recieve them. or before they make the delivery. Imagine how much money you spend just adjusting this thing before you sell them. It just dont sound right to me.

Dont these dealers ask for the samples of what the machine can do before they buy them. That is really a bad purchase f you still have to adjust the machine when these people from the factories can adjust the machine before they deliver them. That would be the last time I am gonna buy from them or would even not accept it.

That's because what the factory is doing is wholesaling industrial machinery and industrial machinery shipped wholesale comes with a completely different set of expectations than single-machine retail.

You wouldn't by a CNC bridge mill from alibaba and expect it to unbox it and just have it work. You'd expect to have to install it, level it, set it up, calibrate it, integrate it with your design workflow etc. etc. etc.

Industrial sewing machines are just like that, except that most people don't have expectations of CNC mills that come from having a small domestic model that they can take out of the box and have Just Work (not that that wouldn't be awesome, mind you!).

The other thing about industrial sewing machines is that by and large they get set up to do one thing, and they do that one thing day in day out until they're completely worn out. Factories that need more than one type of seam sewn that requires a different weight or colour of thread, or a different length stitch, will buy a separate machine to do each thing, because doing that is cheaper than interrupting workflow to reconfigure a machine. You can see this in the depressing videos of Chinese jeans factories.

That's where small single-maker shops are different, for someone producing bespoke goods in limited numbers an extra machine represents a significant outlay, and if you've only got one machine operator, the time lost reconfiguring the machine is comparatively small. Even so, most folks will have two or three industrial machines of different types for different work.

Factories that employ tens or hundreds of these machines have in-house mechanics whose full time job is looking after them. They guy who starts the narration of this great video about Puritan machines does nothing but service them for the shoe factory that uses them. Puritan machines haven't been made new for years now.

The dealers do ask for samples, and do do extensive testing of the machines before they order lots of them and put their brand on them and part of their process with that is working out how much work they need to put in to set the machine up and get it sewing properly for the work the customer wants to do with it, whether they can get the factory to manufacture the right sort of feet and plates and so on, and what the quality control coming out of the factory is like (it varies hugely from factory to factory).

Something that isn't obvious at all to folks who learn about 441 machines from this forum is that they were never designed as heavy leather stitchers. They're designed for heavy textile work, sewing things like cargo parachutes and harnesses. There are even ones that are specifically set up to sew cloth polishing wheels. They were first set up to sew leather by Ferdco, and the guy who founded that company patented some of the modifications that are required. That was about 20 years ago. To set up a 441 to sew leather you have to swap out the feed dogs, needle plate and presser feet, you also have to set it up for thick thread, make sure you're using properly aligned leather point needles, and power it with a low-speed high-torque motor.

I hope that helps a bit.

[amuckart]

Watch this video and see how many different machines get used for different operations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkvFBF4xT3o

[Constabulary]

@amuckart

the Video with the old Puritan machines is awesome! I like it very much to see that these old machines are still doing an great job.

[korokan]

Hi Amuckart,

Awesome video.!!

I am learning new things from you.

The old concept that China makes unreliable product pop up when you buy product from a factory and delivered to US as untimed and not in sync. Still the dealer insist on taking them as if they are desperate and spend Hours to adjust it. This is like buying defective products and fixing it yourself and repacking them to customer. While the customer think they bought a new unrefurbished product.

The concept of modifying a product and changing the feeddogs and plate are way diffrent when you received a product untimed and off sycn. Of all the deliveries they may make to the US, they still make off timed sewing machine all over again is unthinkable.

They should start sending all these factories back to the US, so the US worker can do it right the first time.

I remember a video from Harley Davidson that shows a motorcyle as soon as it come out of the assemby line, the tester would start the engine one time. If it dont start at one clickt, ti is declared defective right away.

I wonder what the German company like the Adler and Pfaff do different from the Chinese company. Since some of them are base in China, It is hard for me to presume they cant sew out of the box.I will take your word that they cant , and it takes a dealer to make it right.

I have a big respect for our local dealers , what they go thru to be able to sell the product in the us to customers needs.

Edited July 7, 2014 by korokan