Juki DSC245 - any experience with this machine

[plinkercases]

As it says does anyone have experience with this machine? is it suitable for gun and blade leather, tack and harness projects?

[Matt S]

I have a clone of the Juki 246. This is essentially the same as the 245, but with a larger hook. There's not many 24x machines around, or their clones.

I like the 246 because it combines a lot of features I was looking for: it takes M (large) bobbins; it takes common 135x16/17 needles; it's a walking-foot machine that takes common 111-type feet; it has a fairly small diameter cylinder bed; it's got reverse; it can run TKT20/v138 thread all day and TKT13/v207 thread in the top if you ask it nicely. I used to use it as my primary machine until I made space for a flat-bed machine.

However, this is an upholstery weight machine. It'll do about 8mm (5/16") thickness maximum, and struggle a little there. As I said above the biggest thread I have used is TKT13/v207 on top but this is marginal and I prefer to use or smaller TKT20/v138 with any regularity. Having a smaller hook the 245 probably won't deal with v138 too well, and with the smaller bobbins you'll be changing them more often. A real Juki will have a much better build quality than my Chinese clone machine so it might deal okay with heavier thread even with the smaller hook, but I don't know. If you're making, say, pocket holsters and little knife pouches this might be alright but I think you'll be disappointed.

The other issue is that there are very few accessories available for the 24x series of machines. I think that Juki only made them for a few years and from the few references I've found online they don't look like they were very popular. There's some binding parts and that's about it. I've looked at parts designed for the Adler 69, which is quite similar, but because the 24x series has a 4-motion feed-dog (rather than the 69's 2-motion) extensive modifications would be needed, which makes it a lot more expensive.

[shoepatcher]

The Juki 245, 246 machines are Juki's version of the Pfaff 335 machine, Adler 69 and Consew 277.  They use Singer feet.  Juki is still making the 245, 246 machines.  As to throat plates and feed dogs, I am not sure which if any  Consew parts will work.  I doubt the Adler 69 or Pfaff 335 parts will work so that means buying genuine because there are very little clones being made to my knowledge.  I have sewn on a 245 and it could handle some thickness over 5/16 ".  If you are sewing heavy or hard leather, no.  Overall, a pretty good machine  but not for  tack are harness just like the Pfaff335, Adler 69 and Consew 277.  Good for a lot of hockey repair though.

glenn

[plinkercases]

Thank you gentlemen that was al very useful.

Based on the above I will take a pass on the opportunity to buy it let someone else pick this machine up.