Adler 205

[Troy Burch]

I'm fairly new at this sewing machine stuff so I need help to figure out what kind of feet or needle bar I need. I'm having a hard time seeing the stitch groove. Could someone point me in the right direction. What are the different needle bars and their uses. I just need to be able to see where the needle enters the leather. Thanks Troy terrible pic but I think you can see what I mean

[dirtclod]

You all ready have the best foot to use for all round work IMO. If you want to see the needle go into the leather on your first stitch raise the foot a little turn the hand wheel to get the needle right where you want it and follow the line you have already made with your dividers. You can use your finger to guide the piece your sewing if you don't have a guide.

To learn to sew i would take a scrap piece and mark lines on it with a ink pen and follow the lines. That should get you pretty comfortable sewing and following a line sewing free hand and you don't have worry if you get off of the line.

[Uwe]

Getting your stitches to perfectly align with a groove you cut ahead of time with a separate tool may be very tricky and take a lot of practice. The point of the groove is generally to have the thread not lay on top of the leather where it may get rubbed and wear more quickly. The thread laying in a groove also looks a little cleaner.

I have presser feet for my Adler 205 that have a ridge at the bottom which makes a groove impression (not a cut) in the leather as you sew, and the groove is always perfectly aligned with the stitches and the thread that lies in the groove.

Here are some pictures of my ridged presser feet ( One from Toledo Bob, the other from Weaver Leather, both are narrow harness feet).

There are also presser feet with a slit in the front which may make it easier to line up the stitches with an existing, pre-cut groove. This one made by Kwok Hing also has a built-in guide to follow the material edge:

Edited June 28, 2015 by Uwe

[Troy Burch]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've gotten so used to the Boss being able to align every stitch that the adler seems like I'm sewing blind. I always use a stitch groove to inlay my stitches on things that will get a lot of wear. Uwe, does the ridged foot inlay the stitches well? if so you may have solved my problem. Thank you buy the way I installed the edge guide you sent and it's great.

[Uwe]

I'm glad to hear the edge guide worked out for you.

I tried a few sample stitches with the different presser feet on my Adler 205. The difference is what I would call subtle, especially with 415 thread I have in my machine. I'm guessing smaller thread would lay deeper in the groove and not protrude above the leather at all. I can definitely feel the difference when I run my finger across the stitch line. The ridged stitch line feels considerably smoother.

I'm not sure the pictures I took do the difference justice. In the pictures, the right (or top)-most stitch line is done with my regular presser foot without the ridge at the bottom. All the other stitch lines are done with the ridged harness presser foot from Weaver, some without thread and different stitch lengths so you can see the groove impression the ridge makes. The leather is two layers of 6oz Horween Cavalier.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Uwe

[Troy Burch]

Thank you for going to that much trouble, I'm going to order one Monday. It'll be nice not to have to worry about trying to follow a stitch line. I've always used 277 thread but seriously considering going to 207, nearly all of my sewing is belts or scabborts.

[Colt W Knight]

It took me a lot of practice to learn to control my sewing machine. Even using the edge guide took a lot of trial and error. It wasn't as simple as set it and forget it.

[Wizcrafts]

I have one inside presser foot for my Cowboy CB4500 that has the ridge on the bottom. It works great on straight stitch lines, but creates nasty impressions on certain turns. Sometimes the off-track impressions can be spooned out, other times, not so well.

[Troy Burch]

Yes Sir, I've had it long enough that I'm starting to get comfortable with using it. I've been using a guide just not the fancy deluxe flip up kind I got from Uwe. Following a stitch groove is still a pain for me because of no speed reducer which is next on my wish list. The ridged foot sound like it would make that worry free and one less thing to fret about. My situation is a little unique as I can't use my feet so I'm basically using one hand for the controlls and the left hand to sew and I'm right handed. lol

[Troy Burch]

I have one inside presser foot for my Cowboy CB4500 that has the ridge on the bottom. It works great on straight stitch lines, but creates nasty impressions on certain turns. Sometimes the off-track impressions can be spooned out, other times, not so well.

I never thought about that. So going around a belt tip would be one of those certain turns? I guess I need an open toe type.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Troy Burch

[Wizcrafts]

I never thought about that. So going around a belt tip would be one of those certain turns? I guess I need an open toe type.

Troy;

If you are sewing bridle leather it is trivial to rub out the foot marks.

[Troy Burch]

I've never used bridal leather. I pretty much always use HO because I tool everything.

[Wizcrafts]

I've never used bridal leather. I pretty much always use HO because I tool everything.

I suppose you can try backing off the top pressure to reduce the footprint depth. This might also require a reduction in both the top and bottom thread tensions.

[Uwe]

I was curious about the belt tip and corner thing and tried sewing a few sample belt tips. I don't normally do belts, and I don't claim to be an expert at this. It turns out the ridged harness feet can indeed sew a tight corner without leaving extra impressions, but it depends on how you move around the corner. I did the variations by accident, actually, and I'll have to watch my own video again to figure out how I did it, haha.

Here's the video in glorious 1080P: https://youtu.be/I55V6FboCeE

Edited June 29, 2015 by Uwe

[Troy Burch]

Can't access the video for some reason.

[Uwe]

Hmmm, let's try this again with a slightly different link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55V6FboCeE

You can also just go to Youtube and find my channel by typing UweXY in the search box. The public videos will be listed there.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Uwe

[Troy Burch]

Ok Uwe, looks like a square corner is the main culprit there. I think I'll get both that and an open toe and see which I like the best. Thank ya'll for the help. Troy

[Uwe]

Forgive me for over-analyzing this, but I just had to figure out how this works and why the two belt tips turned out differently in my video.

Normally, you want to turn your piece while the needle is in the DOWN position. For this belt tip application with a ridged presser foot you want to turn the piece when the needle is in the UP position, coming down for the next stitch hole. After looking at the video a few more times and thinking about how it works, it occurred to me that it's important to keep the back of the presser foot pointing toward the previous stitch hole. I didn't do that when I was sewing the red bridle tip (I turned the leather one hole too early, and too much), but I WAS doing that when I was sewing the tooling leather tip.

Perhaps this little diagram helps illustrate what I am talking about: