Will my sewing machine work well with leather?

[Warhauk]

I've recently gotten into leatherworking and I'm considering learning to sew leather with a machine. I've seen that there are industrial leather sewing machines for several thousand bucks but I got my wife a decent sewing machine a while back. It's a husqvarna viking designer topaz 50. In theory, it says you can use leather with it but doesn't really have any specifics that I've seen in the manual. I've posted on some sewing machine forums about it, but haven't gotten much feedback.  Does anybody have any experience with this machine or something similar to know if it actually does well with leather, max thickness it can work with, etc?

[chuck123wapati]

My two cents, i have tried about four different home style machines, a couple would sew ultralight leather, 1 mm or so thick but with great difficulty and a lot of tinkering your wife wouldn't like. I've went down that road wasted a bunch of time, leather and money and found out what others already knew.

I'm sure more knowledgeable will chime in but as far as any real leather work the answer is no. The leather machines costs thousands for a reason. 

[fredk]

Wot he says

Its a sales ploy 'it'll sew leather et cetera'. I might sew very thin leather, like 0.5mm or so but really its a no goer.

Having said that I use my Singer 99K for punching sewing holes in leather up to about 3mm thick, but I've not used it with thread to sew

[chrisash]

Most domestic machines quote Chrome Tan leather that can be sewn and they are generally under about 1.4mm and soft leather used for many items like coats and upholstery, they may do 1mm soft veg tan but thats about it without pushing the mahine to its limits and out of its intended design range of use. Most these days, also have nylon cogs rather than the stronger steel ones

[kgg]

1 hour ago, Warhauk said:

It's a husqvarna viking designer topaz 50. In theory, it says you can use leather with it but doesn't really have any specifics that I've seen in the manual.

Right up front I know nothing about your particular machine. According to the spec of your machine you have a single needle domestic embroidery machine which maybe able to do some normal tailoring sewing tasks but it is geared more for doing embroidery tasks using generally thinner fabrics. Most domestic sewing machines not domestic embroidery machine can do about 1mm or so of soft leather, chrome tan. The older domestic sewing machines like the Singers could probably handle much thicker soft leather occasionally as they were case iron bodied machines with real metal gears and shafts. 

For leather you need a metal bodied machine with metal gears and the thicker the leather the heavier the machine you need.

I wouldn't attempt to use your machine for leather or thick tough fabric like 21 oz canvas.

Since there is no one machine that will do everything the key in finding a new or used sewing machine for leather is knowing what you would like to sew whether that is wallets or saddles.

kgg

 

 

[Warhauk]

Thanks for the inputs. I honestly was already assuming the same things that y'all told me because the machine does look pretty...frail may be the right word. Maybe dainty. But wanted to make sure before I outright dismissed it, or worse, decided to test it and break my wife's machine.

[Northmount]

Read this

 

[biker55]

If you're interested, they have a chinese leather machine that is sold on ebay and amazon for around $100. there's a bunch of youtube videos on this, if you want to check it out. it's hand cranked, but I've seen videos where people have motorized theirs. here's one video. 

 

[Garyak]

I made a killing with a china patcher. I have a cobra 29-18 also. I can do things with the china patcher the cobra could never do.

[Garyak]

If a person has some serious sewing skills and uses the machine within the limits it’s designed for, it’ll make money, and believers outta the nay sayers…. I’ve shut down more threads with proof the haters can’t deny.