Reverse Stitch Woes

[edwelld]

Hi All,

hoping someone can help me with a problem I'm having with reverse stitching.

I have very recently bought a Highlead GC2268 Cylinder Arm machine. I'm still finding my way with it, having never used a sewing machine before. I've managed to get some nice stitches in the normal forward direction, having played around balancing the thread tensions (thanks to all who have posted really helping info on this forum). However, I am having no joy at all when I try to reverse stitch to lock the stitches.

I’m using bonded nylon 20s top and bottom. Black on the top and white on the bottom.

 

On both pieces of leather, the long lines of stitching was done just in normal “forward” direction. On both pieces the tension is balanced and the stitching looks good.

 

In middle of each piece, I put the leather in the machine, and immediately started with reverse stitch. (holding both threads for the first few stitches) As you can see from the photos, it is dropping stitches or in some cases not making any stitches at all. I’ve put pieces of paper under the stitch lines to make it easier to see the dropped stitches.

 

With no thread in the machine at all, I put a piece of paper under the presser foot and hand cranked forward and reverse for 3 stitches and the reverse holes lined up exactly with the forward ones.

 

I have referred the problem to the supplier of the machine, but being so "green" myself, I'd appreciate a view from the experts out there whether this is a likely problem with the machine or the user!

 

Am I being naive to expect this to "just work"?

 

hoping you can help

 

David 

[Matt S]

Hi David,

Reverse can be a bit of an awkward bugger in leather. Tensions and stitch length are often not quite matching as when you sew forwards. You either minimise the differences so they're acceptable, hide them, or use an alternate method.

I have found that when you press the reverse makes a big difference. Best results occur when I "change gear" with the machine stopped, otherwise there will be skipped stitches, birdsnests and it won't stitch into the same holes. Different machines produce best results for me when I change from reverse to forward (or vice versa). Most machines seem to work best when I do this at bottom dead centre ( the needle at it's very lowest point), but some just a little past that (as the needle starts to rise). 

[edwelld]

Problem solved- there was a timing issue now resolved by the supplier and the tension has been cranked up top and bottom :-)