Advice for a nooby please guys

[sparky20006]

You called them up! Cheers bud! 

I think I'm going to need a servo motor to be honest Mike, having read what you say. By the time I add on the price of a servo I reckon it's going to start shoving this towards 700 quid and despite the wife's arthritic back i think she'll still manage to connect a boot to my crotch if I splashed that on a sewing machine.

Mike do me a favour mate have a sniff around ebay and elsewhere and see if you can see a 'bargain' for around the 400 quid mark. I live near Glossop and can pick up as I have a Berlingo. 

Is it OK if whenever I see anything I send you a link in here? You have probably forgotten more than I know and knowing my luck I'd buy a lemon.

 

Paul

 

[mikesc]

Of course I phoned them ..I'm no expert on sewing machines, but I have been around them off and on since art school over 40 years ago..

 ..I know the 211U166 ( and related models ) because I can reach behind me and touch my 211U166a machine from here, and since I got it , I've done everything to it barring a full "all rods and shafts and bearings out field strip" ..some here ( Eric, Wiz, Uwe and Constabulary and others ) are probably thinking "why hasn't he done that yet, lazy sod ?"

Btw ..Typed a longish reply originally, grazed the wrong key ( one of the keys on my French keyboards seems to work as ghost "hot key" to delete text ( in linux Mint 17.2 ) in dialogue boxen in FF whilst typing, lost all my reply, so, "browser ate it"..bugrum..so here goes again..

As I said, I'm no sewing machine expert ( I don't even play on on the TV in my own head )..although  there are many here, too numerous to mention all of them, perhaps they will join in , but I have been around sewing machines since my 1st art school back in the early 70s ( we had to learn how to make what we could design or draw, including how to use industrial sewing machines, industrial letterpress and litho printers etc, very good grounding, prevents people like Eric and Wiz having reasons to think disparaging thoughts about "designers and artist" who draw or design things that cannot be made.."know your material, know your tools".."head, hands and heart" etc..

Prevents one designing Chocolate teapots or bicycles for fish..

Anyway..since buying my 211U166a, I have been very thoroughly over it, tweaking, cleaning, oiling, it had only one lady owner from new ( but as Eric "gottaknow" said in another recent thread here, he does not allow machine operators to oil or tweak or generally "futz" with machines ..with good reason IMO ) the lady's boss had not allowed here to tweak etc, just sew..Then when she retired she bought the machine from her boss, ( he was closing down ) and she only knew to oil where the red marks are, luckily she did almost no sewing with it, maybe only 500 metres of polyester in 15 years ( I got a lot, 20 or so, of huge spools of polyester and nylon and poly cotton mix thrown, all in good condition, plus all the spare hooks and things that she did not know what they were for :)..I now know my 211U166a very well ( there are other "relatives" to it which are very similar )..I can reach out and touch it from where I'm typing this ..for the 3rd time..

Thus I know what to ask about that machine in particular, and what it can do, and some of the "gotchas"  ( like the somewhat vague stitch length indicator system that one gets used to, but which I might "mod" on mine to make it easier to get exactly the stitch length I want each time I change it , one of Uwe's videos gave me an idea how it might be accomplished with the aid of a diamond tipped Dremel or a tiny set of hardened jewellers punches )..not an important "gotcha" on a 211, but to a "tinkerer" and "embellisher"..a "project"

Ask me about another machine which I don't own or haven't touched in along time, I'd hesitate to answer, but I know what these can do..

The only thing that you mentioned that you might encounter difficulties with would be sewing deep moulded pouches ( a cylinder machine would be better for them) but, they can be done with a flat bed compound feed..for the rest of what you propose sewing, a 211u166 would work great..other opinions / posters ?

re needing a servo motor straight away on that machine ( and thus bumping up the cost ) ..did you see the video I posted the URL to about speed reducers and clutch motors ?

here it is "embedded"

I'd be amazed if you need to go any slower than this ?

When I was researching parts to make my speed reducer, I found that the pulleys and the bearings were cheaper and easier to come by in the UK than in France..

All the parts to make one should cost you no more than £40.00..

Fitting is really easy..exactly how they attach depends on the type of frame of your machine's supplied table..my table is on a "Z" frame, so I made a vertical sliding adjuster from steel stock and bolted it directly to the "Z" frame somewhat forward and in line with the pulley of the clutch motor ( thus my clutch motor doesn't "stick out the back of the table" ) ..my pulleys are 40mm on the drive shaft of the clutch motor, belt drive to the large 200mm pulley on the speed reducer, and the small pulley, 45mm on the speed reducer drives the original 75mm pulley on the 211 head..thus giving me a speed reduction of around 5:1 ..the original motor max speed is 1750 rpm, so my current max speed at the machine is 350 rpm, but with "feathering the clutch" and an extended to the left side of the pedal activating arm, and a "bungee cord" additional tensioner, and a block of dense foam under the pedal..I can easily run it at well under 60 stitches per minute..or as fast as I want up to 350..

Constabulary ( one of the actual experts here, and fellow sewing machine addict, with a penchant for rescuing cast iron ) had a contact for a guy that made him some "all in one" custom speed reducers for around €40.00 about a year ago, postage was around €10.00 to anywhere in Europe, maybe he can still get them for the same sort of price and maybe he would be willing to source one for you and send it ?

If I were you, I'd convince your wife that you may as well get the right machine set up at the beginning..I can't see that you'll find a true compound feed walking foot on ebay or elsewhere for that kind of price, and as they are a dealer ( ebay says" they are a "business registration" ) you get all the usual legal UK and EU consumer rights and protections via the consumer legislation, whereas buying if buying on ebay or elsewhere from a private individual you have no redress if it stops working after 5 minutes..apart from the individuals ebay "rep"..and many private sellers don't care about their "rep", they can just re register in another name if it turns out that they are selling lemon after lemon..

Spotting a lemon in a private sale ( private individual seller ) from another country via the internet is not really feasible, you'd still be the one touching it and taking delivery, anyone here can advise a bit,( and the help and expertise here is amazing ) but we can't be in your eyes, ears, fingers etc, at the moment of payment you'd be on your own..

Me..I'd smile at your spouse and promise to do the dishes for a year and day, and then go for the machine that can do what you want from the man with the Punjabi accent..his accent took me back to when I lived in the UK ( lot of my mates had that accent )..in France I never hear it unless I'm phoning to Pakistan or India ( Punjab region of either )..and the phone lines are not very good or clear to that region of the world..

my 2cts

Edited June 2, 2016 by mikesc

[Darren Brosowski]

95k40 is about as useful as a domestic sewing machine so do not waste your money.

31k47 is great for work up to about 4mm. If you can get it for 100 quid then it is a good starter machine.

Save your pennies for a machine that will do the heavy work

 

[GPaudler]

Hi Sparky, you're getting lots of good advice here, but besides a machine's ability to push a needle through some thickness, you might consider the size thread that you'd like to use and the stitch length. Those can be important elements of the appearance of the kinds of projects you have in mind and there are plenty of machines that will handle 5mm thickness but only with size 92, or thinner, thread and 8, or more, stitches per inch. That will be plenty strong but might not provide the appearance that you'd like.

[Darren Brosowski]

Almost every machine that uses a standard shuttle type maxes out at M20 (#138).

Anything heavier needs an open frame shuttle

 

[sparky20006]

Thanks for the advice guys really appreciate it. I have much to chew over!