Thick leather, thread breaking.

[Xanthe]

Hello.  I have found this forum very useful over the past few months while setting up my workshop.  I still havn't managed to solve my current problem so I hope you can help me.

I am sewing 2.6/2.8mm veg tan leather onto sheepskin and my walking foot machine does this quite happily with bonded nylon or polyester metric size 40/ tex size #70 and needle size 18.  I would like to use a thicker thread and have a cone of metric size 20 tex/ #138 bonded nylon, and have bought a plethora of needles size 22, 23, 24 with various leather points.  My machine can sew fine with these needles and the thicker thread on only the sheepskin, but is not so happy when on the thick leather too.  The thread breaks and the machine judders.  I did tighten the belt today, and that has improved the situation a little bit. I’m sewing really slowly and have tried different thread tensions.

Is there anything else I can try, or is my machine just not up to sewing through the thick material with a bigger needle?

Thank you!

[chrisash]

Please can you tell us the machine you are using and a short video from your phone would also help others understand whats going wrong

 

[Xanthe]

Hello.

It is a compound feed flat bed walking foot machine.  It is not branded, it is a modern Chinese machine.  I can make a video today and will post it later.

 

Thanks, Xanthe.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Xanthe

[Xanthe]

Hi.  I had a slightly more success today - the machine sounded happier, did not judder and stitching was good for a while.  In the end though, the thread was damaged.   In the video I was using #23NW leather point needle (System DPx16) with #20s/ #138 nylon bonded thread.  I'm so close to this being perfect!

These are all the things I have adjusted; The bobin tension reduced, increased pressure on presser foot, sprayed silicone everywhere, top tension reduced to low.

Is there anything else I can do (other than choose a thinner thread).  Would Polyester #138 make any difference?