Seiko STW-8B (Consew 266R) - presser foot height and reverse issues

[michaelcbarr]

Hi all!

I'm brand new to machine leather sewing so please excuse any stupid questions

I bought a Seiko STW-8B  - which I have since found out is often sold as a Consew 266R. It was sewing OK but had some issues with reverse stitch length which I think I solved by replacing an after market bolt which was fouling on the main shaft. I now have forward and reverse hitting the same holes - which took hours but was worth it I think.

I have also fitted a servo motor as clutch control is apparently wAY beyond my skill level :D 

I still have a few issues which I would really appreciate some advice on. I'm going to list them all in one topic but happy to split if moderators prefer:

1. Presser foot height and needle bar interference
   1. From watching @Uwe's brilliant video series I can see that it is possible to sew through 3 layers of 8/9oz veg tan - I would love to try this but I cannot get the presser foot adjusted high enough to even fit the material under. I have tried all the adjustments I could find on this site and elsewhere but it seems to be maxed out at around 9-10 mm on the knee lift even though the manual suggests it should be 0.5 inches - i.e around 13mm.
   2. Even when I do get 10mm of leather under the presser foot, when I try to cycle the needle, the needle bar fouls on the vibrating foot - I'm only using hand power to test this but it seems there would be interference and damage if I tried to run it under power. I have the standard 135/17 needle - do I need a longer needle and then adjust the needle bar higher and reset the timing?
       
2. The vibrating presser foot seems to be off centre in relation to the needle. The needle sits dead centre in the feed dog hole but if I line the vibrating foot up straight in the middle of the lifting foot, then the needle is very, very close to the left edge of the vibrating presser foot hole. I can remedy this by rotating the vibrating foot slightly to one side so it does not run true from front to back -  but surely that isn't correct?
    
3. The timing seems to be correct (seems!!) but in reverse it is skipping stitches every time - and I'm pretty sure the top thread is just being missed by the hook. Is there anything obvious i could have messed up or do I just need to check the timing again?

Thanks so much for your help - I only discovered this website a few days ago and I am hooked - so many helpful folk out there!

Mb

  

 

[DonInReno]

 

23 hours ago, michaelcbarr said:

The timing seems to be correct (seems!!) but in reverse it is skipping stitches every time - and I'm pretty sure the top thread is just being missed by the hook. Is there anything obvious i could have messed up or do I just need to check the timing again?

Welcome to the site!

Hook timing needs four things - if any of these four things are not right you’ll skip stitches.

From the lowest position, raise the needle the thickness of a US nickel.   We are talking 3/32” - not 1/8”, not 1/4”, not 1/16” and not a US quarter.  In metric or inches, this amount is almost universally recommended.   If someone won’t or can’t get this right the rest won’t matter.

Second, at that needle position the point of the hook should be inline with the needle and 1/16” above the eye.  This is so important in the past many of us insisted on a photo before giving any additional advice because it must be human nature to screw this up and think it’s ok when it’s not.

Third, the point of the hook should be as close to the needle as possible without actually touching it.  Literally, at most a piece of paper should barely slide through the gap, and literally the hook should not be deflecting the needle!   Again, many of us don’t believe someone has actually set this gap correctly unless they can prove it with a close up photo.

Fourth, the hook as to be correct.  The sharp point of the hook has to be a sharp point.   A blunt damaged point will not cleanly reach behind the thread as it should.   A hook that’s been bent inward and someone has chosen to adjust it closer to the needle rather than replacing the hook is asking for trouble.  A cheap replacement hook may not ever work correctly - I saw one on eBay that didn’t even have a needle guard.   I often don’t believe people when they say the hook is in good condition unless they have a good quality photo.

Good luck with your machine!

[michaelcbarr]

Thanks so much Don!

I had another crack at the timing based on your advice and noticed that the needle was actually being deflected by the shuttle - more so in reverse than forward. On closer inspection, this seemed to be caused by the hook being in line with, or slightly inboard of the edge of the shuttIe. This had the effect of very slightly pushing the needle away from the shuttle at the point of bobbin thread catch, if the needle height was correct as stated. 

i very gently applied some pressure to the hook and moved it a tiny fraction out - we are talking 1/2 a mm at the very most. This allowed me to set the hook closer to the scarf of the needle avoiding the deflection, and it seems to have fixed the problem:

 

 

That line on the right shows forward and reverse hitting the same holes perfectly with no missed stitches!

Thanks again @DonInReno.

Now I just need to look at the max presser foot height and the weird rotated vibrating foot issues!

Mb

[DonInReno]

Awesome - glad that helped!

[Uwe]

Please post some pictures of your machine. That model apparently went through multiple versions and castings over the years. There are surprisingly few pictures of this Seiko model available online. Suggested pictures: whole machine front and back, remove left cover plate on head and show internal bits, underside of machine with close-ups of hook gears, head near take-up lever and tension unit, close-ups of needle area, rear of machine near lift lever.

Having pictures eliminates much guesswork and allows us to identify what version of the machine you actually have. Plus, we can mark up your photos with arrows as we try to explain things.

A video clip uploaded to YouTube with a link to it posted here is the best way to show problems in motion. Extremely slow, hand-turned stitches tell the best stories.

The feet on your machine may be cheaply produced aftermarket feet that are simply not to spec, off-center, or with a misaligned mounting hole, causing mis-alignment of needle and foot. If the needle is nicely centered in the hole of the feed dog, then the presser foot itself is a suspect.  

Show us how high the rear foot lifts above the throat plate when using the manual lift lever - hold a small ruler next to the foot.

Show us a picture (or video clip) of the position of the tip of the hook when the needle is precisely at the lowest point. Hook timing variance may cause trouble, even if the machine manages a nice stitch.

Show us a photo of the needle package you’re using.

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Uwe

[michaelcbarr]

@Uwe first of thanks so much for taking the time to reply - it is very much appreciated.

I have taken a load of photos and a wee video of a slow hand stitch, along with a video of the needle bar colliding with the presser foot if I force 10mm of leather under it.

I used a small piece of paper with marked measurements to show the max lift height (using hand lift and then knee lift)

Hope this gives you some idea! 

I have created a shared Google photo album as I can't attach the photos here - hope that's OK?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NEX5wJiNEmeipj146

I have picked one out up to my 1.5MB limit :D

Here is the video clip of a slow stitch:

And this is is one of the needle bar collision on 10mm leather:

 

BTW - please excuse the dirt on the machine - once I make sure it works as required and I am definitely keeping it I will give it a thorough cleanup - promise :D

Thanks again for your help,

Mb

 

 

[Uwe]

Thanks for the pictures and videos. Posting pictures right here in the forum is the best way for easy in-topic viewing and also for archiving purposes. That Google drive link will just not work a year or two from now, and the search engines don’t index the photos unless they’re actually on a web page. It’s a bit of a pain to resize photos to upload them here, but well worth the effort in the long run.

There are quite a few adjustments that are not quite right from what I can tell based on your videos:

Top three issues that need to be corrected first:

1. Hook timing looks retarded, meaning the hook arrives at the needle too late. This causes the needle bar to be set lower than it should be, and it causes the thread to snap around the hook because the hook timing is not properly synchronized with the take-up lever motion. This video shows how to time the hook on this class of machine:

 

2. The walking motion of the feet is not timed correctly. The front/inner foot arrives at the throat plate much too late. 

This video shows how to adjust the walking foot timing on a Pfaff, your machine works the same way:

 

3. Your rear presser bar is adjusted too low. This causes your foot clearance issues. The video below shows a lengthy repair that you DON’T need to do. During the re-assembly steps it shows how to adjust the rear presser bar height starting at the 11:35 mark (use a 1/2” spacer block for your machine) You’ll need to back out the presser tension screw (shown at  1:00) and loosen that clamping  screw I’m tightening in the video to be able to move the rear presser foot bar up and down.  

 

Report back after you’ve made these adjustments and we’ll address the other issues. We’’ll need to see how various parts are aligned with the needle in three key positions:

1. When the descending tip of needle is level with throat plate.

2. Needle at lowest point (bottom dead center)

3. Needle in hook timing position

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Uwe

[michaelcbarr]

That's brilliant thanks @Uwe! I will get on to that today and see what I can do .

I can also have a look at resizing some of the pics and reposting if you think any of them would be helpful to others?

Mb

[Wizcrafts]

9 hours ago, michaelcbarr said:

That's brilliant thanks @Uwe! I will get on to that today and see what I can do .

I can also have a look at resizing some of the pics and reposting if you think any of them would be helpful to others?

Mb

I use FastStone Photo Resizer. It is easy to use. By lowering the "quality" 15 or 20 percent you get a smaller image file size with very little reduction in clarity. It also has a sharpen function that makes reduced, or even slightly out of focus images sharper. If you also crop out unnecessary portions you can save more bits and bytes. Finally, resizing an image down makes it smaller. I often cut the original file size in half, or close to it, using combinations of functions.

[michaelcbarr]

7 hours ago, Wizcrafts said:

I use FastStone Photo Resizer. It is easy to use. By lowering the "quality" 15 or 20 percent you get a smaller image file size with very little reduction in clarity. It also has a sharpen function that makes reduced, or even slightly out of focus images sharper. If you also crop out unnecessary portions you can save more bits and bytes. Finally, resizing an image down makes it smaller. I often cut the original file size in half, or close to it, using combinations of functions.

Thanks Wiz - I have downloaded and will have a look later or tomorrow - been too busy breaking my machine

Mb

[michaelcbarr]

 

@Uwe

Well... we have good news and bad news !

The timing seemed to go OK - it was a bit out as you suspected - although not by much. 

Equalising the presser feet lift seemed to go OK too.

However, once I started trying to go through the steps to raise the overall height of the lifting presser foot - it all went wrong. I could not get the foot to adjust properly by following your steps and it just seemed to be jammed even when I loosened up every screw. Now the hand operated lift lever has never really worked well for me but I always used knee lift so it never bothered me too much. However,  I suspected the issues may be linked after watching your video and sure enough when I disassembled the presser foot bar assembly - the Thread Tension Release Guide came out in 2 pieces.

 

I ordered the new part you suggested - it looks quite a different shape to the one from my machine but I think it was the same with yours.

Hopefully this solves the issue - I assume the broken part was jammed somewhere in the presser foot bar assembly and was blocking it from raising properly?

Mb

[Uwe]

I think it’s better to know what’s broken than to get frustrated with a machine that’s not working properly without knowing why. Hopefully that new thread tension release slider will fit and your foot lift and clearance issues will be resolved. Perhaps this was why the machine was for sale in the first place. 

Kudos for getting all that disassembled, that was not a trivial task! On the plus side, it’ll give you the chance to give the disassembled parts a good cleaning and remove gunk from the works. It also is good to get to know your machine at that level and gain confidence in handling service and repair tasks yourself. 

Let us know if you run into trouble putting things back together. It takes some patience to line things up properly inside the tight space. It’s okay to just let it sit for a while if you get frustrated with it. Then try again.

Hopefully by the time you’re done you’ll feel good about the machine working the way it’s supposed to and having done the repair yourself.

[michaelcbarr]

7 hours ago, Uwe said:

I think it’s better to know what’s broken than to get frustrated with a machine that’s not working properly without knowing why. Hopefully that new thread tension release slider will fit and your foot lift and clearance issues will be resolved. Perhaps this was why the machine was for sale in the first place. 

Kudos for getting all that disassembled, that was not a trivial task! On the plus side, it’ll give you the chance to give the disassembled parts a good cleaning and remove gunk from the works. It also is good to get to know your machine at that level and gain confidence in handling service and repair tasks yourself. 

Let us know if you run into trouble putting things back together. It takes some patience to line things up properly inside the tight space. It’s okay to just let it sit for a while if you get frustrated with it. Then try again.

Hopefully by the time you’re done you’ll feel good about the machine working the way it’s supposed to and having done the repair yourself.

100% agree @Uwe and I really enjoyed seeing how everything actually works - once I got over the panic about not knowing what I'm doing :D

Your videos were, and will continue to be, invaluable.

Mb

[michaelcbarr]

Well we have some progress but still some frustrations :D

I fitted the new part for the tension release guide - which I had to "fettle" as it wasn't a perfect fit.  Also when I was reassembling I noticed burrs and uneven wear on the main presser foot bar and the piece which connects to the tension release (not sure of the name!) so I sanded with very fine grit and polished both for a better, smoother fit.

Once I retimed everything - the machine is sewing great again - attached photos of great looking stitches at different lengths through approx 8mm of double layer veg tan.

HOWEVER!!!  I still cannot get the presser foot up any higher than about 9mm. 

Photos attached show the presser foot at max lift using the lever - just fits 2 layers of veg tan. I can use the knee lift to enable an extra mm to slide the work piece in and out.

Last photo shows 3 layers of veg tan - approx 1/2 inch. This should be the max presser foot height but you can see it's miles off and even using the knee lift I could not squeeze the work piece in.

I went through the process several times to adjust the height but if I force the presser foot up to 1/2 inch then try to set everything else,  the vibrating foot does not seem to move freely through it's cycle and/or the needle bar bottoms out on the presser feet and the machine won't complete a full cycle.

I'm stumped again.

Two more things :

1. I still have to manually skew the vibrating foot to fit the needle through.

2. I fitted a servo motor and when punching through 2 layers of veg tan with a 22 needle and 207 thread it seems to jerk a bit then catch up when making the initial holes - maybe I need a speed reducer also to beef up the torque and slow it down?

 

Thanks again for your help everyone

Mb

 

[Wizcrafts]

5 hours ago, michaelcbarr said:

Last photo shows 3 layers of veg tan - approx 1/2 inch. This should be the max presser foot height but you can see it's miles off and even using the knee lift I could not squeeze the work piece in.

Are you aware that these upholstery class walking foot machines have an upper sewing limit of 3/8 inch? You may be able to "lift" the feet higher to get the work under the feet, but they need 1/8 inch minimum to alternate up and down. There is no way that machine will "sew" 1/2 inch without major alterations.

If the feet won't lift to 1/2 inch to remove material, the presser bar's lifting bits may be out of adjustment, or worn out.

If the needle bar hits the alternating foot when lifted with the foot or hand lifter, either the bar is too low, or the feet are set too high. A low needle bar could be the result of a previous owner lowering it for a shorter needle system.

[michaelcbarr]

Thanks for your reply @Wizcrafts!

Yes I know I am pushing this machine beyond its limits and I think I should admit defeat and settle for using the Seiko for its intended purpose - which is actually very impressive :D

However, the reason I have been confused about the capability of my machine is due to @Uwe's video of sewing similar thickness of veg tan leather - approx 10mm on a Consew 225. I understand this was just a test and the machine should not be used for this purpose on a regular basis, but in that video @Uwe was clearly able to lift the presser foot up to insert the material with room to spare and that's where I'm not sure if there is something else I need to adjust on my own machine.

The correct size needle was in the machine when I bought it and I think the bar is correct but honestly I am at the limit of my knowledge here.

I can force the lifting foot to 1/2 inch but then the vibrating foot is actually underneath the lifting foot for part of the cycle and the lifting foot does not come back flat to the throat plate when the lifting bar is released - so I know something is wrong and I would never try to sew. 

Mb

[Uwe]

That’s a VERY nice stitch line on your samples right there! Many people would be thrilled to manage just that. 

There’s chance that your front presser bar is simply bent. That might be the reason it will only lift so far; it may also explain the misaligned needle hole in the front. The best way to tell if a shaft is bent is to roll it on a flat surface, but you have to remove it for that - not easy. The second best way to check for a bend is to loosen the shaft clamps, remove the foot and rotate the shaft in place inside the machine. If the bottom of the shaft wobbles as you rotate it, then it’s bent. 

Often when you lift the feet by pressing down on the large lifting arm in the back with your hand, you’ll feel a hard stop with a sort of “clunk” when it reaches it limit of travel. If feels like it’s binding instead of reaching a hard stop, that’s a sign of trouble. If you can make the feet get stuck in the up position that’s definitely a sign that something is not right. 

When the feet are lifted, only the front foot will move as you turn the hand wheel, that’s normal. The rear foot only moves if the front foot presses down against something.

There’s also some wiggle room in how you can adjust the linkage that provides the walking motion to the feet. If that movement of the linkage is not centered properly, it may touch something and bind as you lift the feet. Take off the head cover and observe the linkage as you lift the feet (I press down on the long lifting arm on the back with my hand for that purpose.) The linkage inside the head will move as you lift the feet. Watch for any touch points against the casting or other parts that may limit travel when it shouldn’t. Normally, when both feet are at the throat plate level, the linkage should be roughly in the position shown by the green arrows in the picture below.

 

[michaelcbarr]

Thanks @Uwe! I'm tempted to stop fiddling as it really is working beautifully on double layer veg tan now - but I'm still convinced there is something not quite right!

OK I checked the linkage as described above and its pretty much exactly on the green lines when all feet are level with the throat plate.

A bent vibrating presser bar does seem to make sense and would definitely explain the weird needle hole alignment as you suggested. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the lifting presser bar was not in a good state and I did some major polishing on it to try to even out some wear marks so it wouldn't surprise me if the other bar has been mistreated - or just worn out I suppose.

I can't seem to work out where the clamps are that hold the vibrating presser foot in place - so that I can try spinning it - I just see the large pressure spring and the the little oil access holes that are attached to the rest of the linkage.

Is it a really major job to take the entire bar out - and are there any manuals/video I can follow? Also are the parts available and affordable if It does need replaced?

Thanks again @Uwe - it has been great getting all this assistance :D

Mb