Are Zig-Zag machines exceptionally hard to find?

[councilman24]

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/271013551433547/

 

 

 

 

[ke6cvh]

I own a couple 20u's and the "3/4 sized industrial" bed is standard width but a bit shorter than a full sized industrial.  We have 188u, 123ts, 121dl and the 20u's all have the same cutout of the 3/4 sized industrial.   Even the Juki TL-82 we have is the same cutout.  The straight only and zig zag feet/needle plate are easily available.  We don't use the 20u for straight stitching but instead use all our "20u" cutout machines on treadles and we use our 20u's for treadle bartacking which it excells at really well.  Regarding harp space on a 20u it is actually slightly less than our White family rotary machines which are technically domestics.  The 188u has a larger harp space however than the White.  The reviews of the Chinese 20u109's are horrible on Amazon and these can be had super low cost but I've avoided them.  I got one of mine new old stock made in Japan and it needed to be broken in before it treadled easily because the gearing.  We are real fans of 3 step zig zags and getting a good 3 step ZZ is a real challenge so we use our 123ts Singers for that in a 20u cutout and largely/completely ignore our Juki LZ-1286 even it has a metal gear.  We briefly had a Singer 457 zig zag and got rid of it as quick as possible as the nylon gear literally disintegrated.  Our Singer 123TS also had nylon gear inside but we had brass replacements machined.  My experience is the 20u43 and 20u63 we have both made in Japan are fine machines and everyone avoids the China ones.  Last comment on ZZ machines we have two Juki LZ-391's (can do straight only with knee lifter for presser and zig zag with knee lifter moved to bight width).  The LZ-391's and 271's (ZZ only) are fine machines but keep the gears greased as the machine will start to run hot doing free motion embroidery if not.  All the machines mentioned except the lz-1286 are manually oiled machines so do well at slow speeds.  The lz-1286 is a factory machine made mainly for 24/7 operation making bra straps etc.  Best regards, Mike