SINGER 29-4 OWNERS PLEASE RESPOND

[Sanch]

I have the opportunity to buy a 29-4 for $200.00 from a gentleman who was a saddlemaker.  The questions I have are these. I'm sure they have been asked and answered but I  need to know what real world thickness of leather can this old girl sew? I know from reading she should do a double thick 4oz, am I correct? What type of projects will I be able to effectively tackle? Aside from the obvious, how is the learning curve? What will she eat??? Please if you own one of these help me decide if its money invested or just a dusty space eating thing to look at.  Projects that I intend to use it on should I purchase it are ranging from wallets to gun leather.  ALSO to those who own one please include any pix of projects you have done on your 29-4 and what was your intended use when you aquired your 29-4??? Thanks in advance for reading this and entertaining my repeated queries!

Edited December 3, 2017 by Sanch
Auto correct is my bane! Added question!

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

A 29-4 is a patch machine. It is designed to do that. . . sew patches.  It might be able to sew a wallet, but it will not satisfactorily sew gun leather.  Others who know much more about this model than I (even though I own one) will hopefully come along with more information for you, but I know the 29-4 won't take a very heavy thread and the bobbin is pitifully small.  It is for all practical purposes, a repair machine for lightweight jobs, like leather coats, shoe uppers, etc.  I would save the $200 for something that would better suit your needs.

[Sanch]

30 minutes ago, Big Sioux Saddlery said:

A 29-4 is a patch machine. It is designed to do that. . . sew patches.  It might be able to sew a wallet, but it will not satisfactorily sew gun leather.  Others who know much more about this model than I (even though I own one) will hopefully come along with more information for you, but I know the 29-4 won't take a very heavy thread and the bobbin is pitifully small.  It is for all practical purposes, a repair machine for lightweight jobs, like leather coats, shoe uppers, etc.  I would save the $200 for something that would better suit your needs.

 Okay that's one response! Thank you! I forgot to ask what was your intended use  when you aquired yours? Call me whatever but I cannot justify spending 4 figures on a "majic stick" that does everything cept make dinner lol!! 

SO -1 for the 29-4 but still waiting for more feed back!

Edited December 3, 2017 by Sanch

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

You didn't forget to ask, I forgot to say!  It was in on a package deal, otherwise I wouldn't have gone out looking for one specifically. 

Four figures does sound like a lot to spend on a machine when you've never had one before.  It depends upon what direction you want to go with your leatherwork.  If it is to remain a hobby, and you aren't particularly concerned about what your stitching looks like on the finished product, then the 29-4 might be fine for you.  If you intend to be in business to make a living, then you can't afford NOT to spend the money on the machine that will get the job done, and done as perfectly as can be done.  A "pretty stitch" is something that everyone wants to see on a finished product.  An ugly stitch sticks out and that is all you see, no matter how flawless the rest of the project is.  I have yet to see a pretty stitch made by a patcher on anything that comes through my shop, that has been worked on by someone else before it came to me.  Believe me, I was in your shoes once, about 30 some years ago.  There was a 29-4 advertised in the local paper as a saddle and boot stitcher.  I knew nothing about sewing leather, I just knew that I wanted to do it!  The machine was in a lady's basement, and she had never used it.  She wanted $200 for it (that seems like the magic number).  It didn't sew, but she was "sure you could get parts for it".  I didn't buy it, and thank God I didn't.  For one, it wouldn't have done what I needed it to do, and second, I don't think parts are all that easy to get for them.  I saved the $200 and bought a different machine, that still wasn't what I needed.  It was advertised as a "deep throat harness stitcher".  Well, it looked pretty substantial, and the guy guaranteed it would sew.  Of course it was on an auction, and the guarantee was verbal, so you know what that was worth.  It was way before the days of the internet, so there was no way I could google it to find out just what the machine WOULD do.  I bough it, for $200. Turns out is was a chain stitch machine for sewing feed bags.  Soo. . .  my search continued, and I found an American Straight Needle.  The guy claimed to be a harness maker and said he had used it to build harness, but he was also a horse trader!  I gave $650 for that machine.  Couldn't get along with it.  It sat in my shop for another 15 years before I figured out what it needed for parts and got them put in. And even after I did get it going, it's really not a harness stitcher.  In the meantime, I NEEDED a stitcher!  I luckily found a Landis One that did ALMOST everything I needed it to do, and used it exclusively for 15 years.  I paid $500 for it.  So at that point I had $1350 in basically one machine that I could use.  The other two were just taking up space.  Granted, your needs are different than mine were, but it seems like nearly everyone ends up needing to sew heavier material than they start out intending to sew.  And the more stuff you make, and the more you sew, the more stuff you will get that will likely exceed the capacity of the 29-4.  It may be able to do a somewhat passable job of sewing a wallet, but forget about holsters and gun leather.  I don't mean to sound harsh in anything I've said, but I really, REALLY wish I would have had someone to offer advice to me when I was starting out, other than from the people wanting to sell me boat anchors!  Best of luck to you, truly!

[jimi]

I am with Big Sioux here. i am no expert nor do i make a living from leather work but i would save up your money for another machine if you want to do wallets and belts etc.. i got my first one from the scrapyard for 1,000 pesetas over 20 odd years ago which back then you could get parts for them. so i ended up having to buy a new piñon and bobbin and a couple of other parts to get it going. the old man who sold me the parts had a leather shop who supplied to shoe menders so he had a room next door with 6 or 7 of these patchers for selling to the cobblers (40,000 pesetas each machine). then i bought one with stand from a retired shoe mender a couple of years later for 2,000 pesetas which was back then peanuts. this one was a 29k15, a lot newer looking and had three piñons instead of two if i remember correctly. so as this was in better condition i went to get some new piñons as the ones on this machine were also worn, but for this model there were no spares. so i ended up chucking the bottom arm and using the one from the 29k4 (i think it was) as there was piñons available. so a few years later the old guy packed up and retired and no piñons around anywhere to this day!! i had to get  a friend make a couple up at his work on the fly. and racks, forget it. they use a long rack,short rack and two piñons "which are not the ones you see advertised on ebay" these ones are for the newer 29ks which have the gear box that comes off apart. if you really wanted a 29k then i would look for the newer ones which still have parts available. We thought it would sew all we were doing by hand back then (bags,belts,purses etc..) but in the end a patcher is a patcher and that is what it is best for. you will mark your leather wallets with this. they are best for mending bags, shoes and getting into places other machines will not reach due to it having a thin arm and a 360º feed direction. i would think a must for making wallets is a triple feed machine which is not going to mark your leather wallet and if by gun leather you mean belts and holsters then possibly you might need another machine for doing that. but as i say i am no expert. hope this helps Sanch.

[Uwe]

For $200 just buy and explore it and learn. It'll be worth $200 for the rest of your life unless you destroy it. Singer 29-4 and close relatives have been discussed so many times here on LW people may not be enthusiastic to repeat the whole thing here as a convenience. Do a LW specific search (google "site:leatherworker.net singer 29") and read though some of the topics. 

[Wizcrafts]

I currently own 3 patchers. Two are Singer model 29. One has a short arm and small bobbin, similar to the 29-4. I use them almost on a daily basis to repair purses, shoe uppers and to sew patches onto Biker's vests and jacket sleeves. That is what they are built to do.

I keep #69 thread in the small bobbin machine and #92 in the other two long arm, bigger small bobbin machines.

Most patchers are only good for 1/4 inch of leather. The Adler 30-7 and 30-70 can sew up to 3/8 inch. The Claes can sew about 1/2 inch.

The 29-4 is so old it came off the Ark! They were built in the late 1890s until the early 1900s.

[R8R]

5 hours ago, Sanch said:

 Call me whatever but I cannot justify spending 4 figures on a "majic stick" that does everything cept make dinner lol!! 

Well, with industrial machines that is the opposite of what you will find. 4 figures will get you a machine that does *one* thing, and it will do it very well. The machines that propose to "do everything" are home machines for light materials.

Sewing machines are tools. The more specific, demanding and exacting the task, the more specific, demanding and exacting the tool should be. Price follows accordingly.

[CowboyBob]

Another problem w/a shoe patcher is you can't use thread on a 29-4 any bigger than #92 which will work on wallets but no for holsters.As Big Souix mentioned the machine will leave teeth marks on top of the leather that sometimes are pretty hard to cov er up.

[Sanch]

 Thank you all for your answers and your time! I have researched this before and again the same answers as before no change and this go round different responders as well as a confirmation of my gut feeling I've decided again yup save my pennies thanks again!!

[billybopp]

A couple of years ago, I came across a 29-4 at a good price($350 IIRC) and thought about buying it.  In the end, after reading up on here,  I decided against it mostly because I don't have much space.  It seems that patchers are specialized machines - but for what they do they are THE tool for the job.  If I had the space, I'd love to have one for those special jobs - but not as my primary sewing machine.  

There are a huge number of 29-4s out there, they had a fairly long production run and were an indispensable tool in ever cobblers shop.  The disadvantage of the 29-4 compared to other later machines is that they are over 100 years old and most of them are pretty worn out at this point.   They have difficult to replace parts, and as they wear stitch length gets shorter and shorter.  Later versions were designed to be much more easily repairable, and would be a better choice for that reason. 

All that said, if I came across a -4 in really good shape and had the space I'd probably go for it!

Bill 

[Gunnarsson]

I might as well begin with saying I don't have a 29K or any other machine capable of sewing leather, but I have done the research and if I find one for the right price locally there's a good chance I'll buy it.

As the others have already said, the 29 is a handicapped machine, at least if you compare it to what lots of people ASSUME it can do just because it's built for sewing leather. The 29-series was designed for making repairs in hard to reach areas in relatively thin leather, they started making the 29 (UFA?) some time around 1870 (I'm sure someone else knows more specific) and while I believe Singer pulled the plug on the 29 sometime around the 1970s Adler has kept going with the Adler 30-series that is still in production. Sure, there has been alot of changes through the years, but the fact that a machine made in 2017 still carries the basic design and function from almost 150 years ago says alot about how good the machine is at doing what it was built to do. But that's just it, people see it doing a great job on patching things and thinks it'll do a thick gun holster, saddle, belt or whatever equally good -  it's a machine made for sewing leather so why wouldn't it be able to sew any kind of leather?

As R8R said, with industrial machines the tendency is that every machine is specialized to perform one task. It does just that, but it does it wonderfully well. When another task has to be done, you walk over to another machine made for that task - or rather, you send the work piece to the next worker sitting at the machine designed for doing the next task. The industry has little interest in machines that can do alot of diffrent tasks, they don't fit very well in modern manufacturing, so almost only the domestic market has interest in one single machine that can do as much as possible. Unfortunately, (as far as I know) there are no such domestic machines for sewing leather, so we have to compromize. That usually means buying old industrial machines, and limiting the kind of work we do to what the machine is able to do well enough.

I'd love to have a compound feed machine able to sew thick leather. Some day I might get one, but today I don't have the money and not really the space either. I don't really have the money even for a 29K at market value (space is easier, it doesn't have to sit on the treadle to be usable) but those come up for very little money occasionally, so I keep my eyes open just in case. It really is a limited machine in so many ways, but I might have fallen in love with it while I did the research. It can do some of the jobs I want to do so at the right price I think it still can be a good buy. And even if I find out I don't like it the market value for them is suprisingly high (possibly in part due to lots of people think they are way more capable than they in reality are) so if I buy at the right price I should be able to sell it on and even make a profit.

$200.00 is more than I'd pay, but it sounds low compared to most of the prices I've seen (especially in the US). If it's a working machine in descent condition it might still be a good idea to buy it. Try it out, see what it does, think about if you can use it to make money, if you decide you don't like it you should be able to move it along to someone else without losing money, possibly even making some. Assuming it's a complete and working machine, not too worn, and the value in your area is as high as I'm guessing.