What Is The Best Tpi For The Big Machines With Larger Thread

[OLDNSLOW]

From what I have been reading some of the bigger machines don't do well with lighter leather like garment leather or under 5 to 6 oz, But at that range with anything under say 346 I think is the number what is the TPI that some of you like to work with. I read that the Cobra 4 doesn't d well with anything under 5 oz, or might not sew it as all. If the leather falls in to that range 5 to say 15 oz is there one TPI you set it at and then leave it alone, sorry if I repeated myself I am actually dozing off at the keyboard here.

[Dwight]

My Boss is set at 5 SPI, . . . and I use 346 almost esclusively. The thread is too thick for much of anything below 6 oz overall, . . . but upwards from there, . . . I've sewn stuff that was 48 oz thick (3/4 of an inch) with it, . . . at 5 SPI.

May God bless,

Dwight

[Art]

I use 6 SPI, because I have a Campbell gauge for 6. I've went higher and lower, but even without the gauge, I just like the look of 6 SPI with 346. You can get as fine as a needle width between holes, but it looks unattractive to me.

Art

[Wizcrafts]

I once had a gig sewing on a Randall Lockstitch Machine that used 4 cord, left twist, glazed Barbour's Irish linen thread, run through Ceroxylon liquid stitching wax, sewn at 10 stitches per inch. It was used all day, 5 days a week, to sew up to 5/8" thick straps that run from sulkies to harness race horses. My fingers were the edge guides. It sewed at approximately 300 stitches per minute, pedal to the metal. Tapokita Tapokita.

[Art]

Loved them big bobbins.

Art

[Ken Nelson]

Wiz, That is impressive. My hat is off to you. Ken

[Dwight]

I once had a gig sewing on a Randall Lockstitch Machine that used 4 cord, left twist, glazed Barbour's Irish linen thread, run through Ceroxylon liquid stitching wax, sewn at 10 stitches per inch. It was used all day, 5 days a week, to sew up to 5/8" thick straps that run from sulkies to harness race horses. My fingers were the edge guides. It sewed at approximately 300 stitches per minute, pedal to the metal. Tapokita Tapokita.

After I read this the first time, . . . I wanted to look down and count my fingers, . . .

May hat is off to you, . . . I did some dangerous stuff in my working career, . . . put myself in some seriously precarious places and predicaments, . . . but I just have to be perfectly honest and say I would have passed on that job.

Glad you got through it.........

May God bless,

Dwight

[Wizcrafts]

I forgot to mention that many of those 5/8" Sulky straps were double edge stitched, 1/8" apart, all without an edge guide (aside from the operators hands) We'd sew all the way around then start the second row 1/8" in from the first row. Fun....

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

That actually does sound like fun, Wiz. May I ask who you were working for? I very rarely use an edge guide. About the only time I ever use one is if I'm machine sewing rounds or sewing harness tugs (which I'm assuming is what the sulky straps were) and sinking the back side.

[Wizcrafts]

That actually does sound like fun, Wiz. May I ask who you were working for? I very rarely use an edge guide. About the only time I ever use one is if I'm machine sewing rounds or sewing harness tugs (which I'm assuming is what the sulky straps were) and sinking the back side.

It was a harness maker in Toronto, a long long time ago. I only sewed for him a time or two. I did buy a huge lot of Union Lockstitch parts from that shop. I still wish I could have afforded to buy the Randall Lockstitch machine I was offered back then. I had just purchased the ULS and then his lot of parts, and was dead broke.