Walking ft. comp. feed - when & why?

[SouthernCross]

Why is a compound feed walking foot machine typically specified for leather work, even including lighter-weight leathers?  In other words, at what point does a regular drop feed machine like a Singer 15 become inappropriate for leather?

[nylonRigging]

1 hour ago, SouthernCross said:

Why is a compound feed walking foot machine typically specified for leather work, even including lighter-weight leathers?  In other words, at what point does a regular drop feed machine like a Singer 15 become inappropriate for leather ?

It becomes inappropriate to use . When you can not get the machines finished results to meet  'your personal quality of standards' , with using it . .  Or if it will just Not get the job done at all .

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[Wizcrafts]

My very first industrial sewing machine was a Singer 96k40 tailoring machine. I didn't know it was a tailoring machine. The dealer said it could sew leather. He lied. I bought it to sew a leather vest I was making from a Tandy Leather pattern pack. The machine simply stopped feeding anytime it met a new layer, like the fringes on the upper back. Even when I lifted the foot on top it skipped stitches, then broke the needle. The bottom feed only is unreliable and tends to just slip if the bottom layer is slick, like pasted flesh leather.

Fast forward 35 years and there is a Singer 31-15 head on the floor in my shop. The table it came on is now housing a Singer walking foot machine. It easily climbs over seams and sews almost 5/16 inch of medium density leather with up to #138 bonded thread.

Walking feet alternate up and down. Compound feed machines also have a moving inside presser foot that moves in sync with the needle and feed dog. This is triple feed and the layers stay aligned and feed reliably compared to bottom feed machines.

Read my sticky article at the entry page of this forum about the type of machine you need to sew leather.

[SouthernCross]

I already have a CB3200.  I'm looking for something to sew lighter materials such as wallets and canvas bags.  I just don't know if I need a compound feed walking foot machine or not.

[DonInReno]

Without a walking foot, stitch uniformity suffers even with canvas bags.  Of course it’s possible to mostly compensate and spend enough effort focused on the stitching to end up with a good end result, but that takes away from what you should be focused on and greatly increases frustration.   Just looking at an item at the seams and changes in thickness, it’s pretty easy to tell if someone is using a bottom feed.

If three machines are set up identically side by side - a bottom feed, needle feed, and walking foot - the walking foot would get used first every time.  If the walking foot was in use, the needle feed would get used next.   I literally can’t imagine a circumstance where a bottom feed machine would ever be the first choice for canvas bags.

 

 

[Gymnast]

A Singer 201 is compareable to a Singer 15 in performance. This is a video of a modified Singer 201 sewing leather:

https://youtu.be/HIDuHjMRFWg

As the video points out and show, the feed dogs leave marks on the surface of the leather. A combined feed machine will leave no or mush less visible marks on the leather surfaces. Furthermore this shown 201 have quite a few modifications, and may not take this kind of work for much time before being worn out. But it is possible for some limited projects and with limited finish quality. The modifications here include speed reducer, tension spring, presser foot with thread notch and advanced timing of feed. I do not think, that an unmodified Singer 15-91 will get you sufficient punching power and low speed performance, because the motor is quite weak and gearing is for high speed.

For upholstery you can find workers that like the drop feed machines. But most upholstery workers use walking foot machines too. This is an example of this: 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Gymnast

[Matt S]

Drop-feed machines work for all weights of leather -- look at the venerable Singer 7, 17 and 45K serieses, which were bought in their hundreds of thousands by users all over the world, usually in drop-feed-only format, and are copied to this day. They tend to be mechanically simple machines, therefore reliable and easy to build and maintain. However their performance drops off when dealing with multiple layers (layer slippage), slippery under-surfaces, grabby top-surfaces, jobs where dog marks are unacceptable, and when climbing up or down seams. In short their behaviour becomes unpredictable and harder to manage, especially by operators who aren't particularly skilled at, able to or are interested in learning to coax a specific result out of a more difficult machine.

Compound feed tends to produce better results in all of these areas at the cost of complexity so when firms like Singer, Adler, Seiko and Juki engineered some beautiful compound-feed machines that could help operators do their work faster and better, users started switching and demand for drop-feed machines... dropped. Today relatively few industrial sewing machines (other than garment-weight machines) are drop-feed -- simply because compound feed is better in almost every way. Seiko, for instance, has been gradually dropping the drop-feed or needle-feed options from several of their lines for years. I imagine that they would be happy to continue making them if there was enough demand.

Singer, despite an enormous head-start and having pioneered many innovations that are now standard, didn't really innovate as much as its rivals and were dead in the water as far as industrial machines by the 1960s. From the late 1960s to the 1980s they had closed their industrial machine production at Kilbowie and were rebadging Seiko and Adler machines as Singers. Consider that only the later models of 45K were about the only ones with a reversing feed as standard, and then only a somewhat awkward one with a separate screw to regulate the reverse stitch length whereas Adler had been making Klasse 4s and 5s with needle feed and reverse since before WW2.

Nowadays we don't really need to worry about machine balance or complexity because the $1-2000 machine you can buy new is the result of several decades of product development, use and improvement which has made a compound-feed machine easy to use, build, maintain and accessorise with off-the-shelf parts. Drop-feed machines still work but still have the drawbacks mentioned above and IMHO are a bit of an evolutionary dead end.

[SouthernCross]

Thanks to all of you for such thorough and insightful responses.  It has really helped me understand things and decide that I do indeed a lighter-weight but compound feed machine. 

Now, what machine would that be?  Any suggestions?  

[Wizcrafts]

3 hours ago, SouthernCross said:

Thanks to all of you for such thorough and insightful responses.  It has really helped me understand things and decide that I do indeed a lighter-weight but compound feed machine. 

Now, what machine would that be?  Any suggestions?  

I have a friend who has an unwanted Singer 111w116 compound feed walking foot machine. It can only be used with System 135x16 or 135x17 needles up to a #20 and thread up to #92 bonded (but preferably #69). This machine would be perfect for sewing upholstery leather, wallets, canvas, denim and vinyl. Machines like this are fairly rare compared to the heavier duty 111w153 and 155.

[SouthernCross]

Thanks for the referral, Wiz.

I have found a 9 month old Juki 1541S for sale locally for $1,300 including table, servo motor and speed reducer, and gobs of thread and bobbins that I have agreed to go pick up tomorrow morning. 

The Juki 1541 should work well for what I'm wanting, right?

[Wizcrafts]

23 hours ago, SouthernCross said:

Thanks for the referral, Wiz.

I have found a 9 month old Juki 1541S for sale locally for $1,300 including table, servo motor and speed reducer, and gobs of thread and bobbins that I have agreed to go pick up tomorrow morning. 

The Juki 1541 should work well for what I'm wanting, right?

Yes! Just back off the foot pressure screws to the minimum needed to hold down the leather as  the needle and thread comes up. This will minimize the poke makes on the bottom that are caused by the inside foot pressing down hard around the needle and into the big slot in the feed dog on the bottom. If your machine has a separate spring adjuster over the inside foot, back it off as far as tolerable, leaving the outside foot to hold down the leather.