Sewing machines anyone?

great white

Active User
Registered
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Messages
2,558
One of the things I learned in the military was sewing. Straps, bags, seat harnesses, survival packs, aircraft seats, etc. We had some pretty serious industrial machines. We had a sales rep come through once and used one of our Juki's to actually sew two pieces of 1/4" plywood together, those machines needed to be treated with serious respect or you were going to end up in the hospital to have your stitches removed!

They're also prohibitively expensive to own for home use.

That being said, I do have an "industrial machine" at home, although it's a 60's era Singer straight lock stitch machine:

272amQ.jpg

It's a real "thumper". It will go through pretty much anything you can get under the presser foot. Great for sewing car leather upholstery, straps, belts, machine and bike covers, etc.

It's what I refer to as a "semi-walking foot" machine. The presser foot is on a pivot and follows the fabric as the lower feed dogs pull the material through. Then it lifts and kicks forward to wait for the lower feed dogs to reposition and do it all over again.

It's not needle/compound feed, but it does leather fine without the sticking and bunching you get on a fixed domestic style presser foot. It takes industrial sized needles (ie; thicker, stronger), which is also a plus.

That it's not the more sought after compound feed style means I was able to buy it for much less than a full compound feed walking foot machine (upholstery/sewing repair shops snap them up when/if they show up used). It does the job, which is all I want.

I also updated it from the clutch motor to a servo motor. Clutch motor is great if you have to turn out 200 shirts per hour (or the Chinese overlords will send you for "re-education"), but not so much for sewing leather car upholstery. Speed is not your friend when sewing leather. I did a little mod to the stitch length regulator and now it will do a full 8 mm leather upholstery stitch width. With leather, you want a wide stitch or the thread might rip right through the leather when loaded or the stitches are pulled tight.

I also have a few Domestic level machines for the lighter jobs. One of my favorites for quick light work is a Singer 319W:

fr_3994_size880.jpg

1950's vintage, based on the PFaff 130 design.

All metal guts, solid cast aluminum body. Not a piece of plastic on it except the foot pedal and the OEM motor casing. All shafts and pivots are bushed throughout. Built to last (as many things were back then), especially in a domestic application. Full loss lubrication scheme, just like my old Atlas lathe.

Many people call them "heritage" machines as they often get passed down through the generations. They just don't wear out and no fancy computer chip or lcd screen to fail. It is still a domestic class machine, but darned near commercial grade compared to today's "plastic fantastic" consumer grade machines.

It's not perfect though. It uses an obsolete needle size, a 208x13. You can still buy them, but only from a few places. They're pretty expensive and limited in sizes (only sizes 14, 16 and 18 available with 16 and 18 even harder to find). Add to that that you can only get ball point needles and it's going to have a hard time with anything besides clothing grade weave fabrics. Want a leather chisel tip needle? Forget it, not in 208x13.

What Singer did was license the patent for the Pfaff 130, but part of the conditions was it had to be dissimilar enough from the 130 that it wouldn't compete for market share. Hence the odd needle size and different shape of the body/frame.

So, after several years using it "as is", it's time for a bit of an upgrade.

First was to tear it down to the frame, clean and inspect everything:

fr_4015.jpg

It all checked out good, although there's a good 50+ years of smoking tar, dust, lint and dried up oil. It was messing up the function a bit, with some parts dragging because of the various build ups throughout the machine and other parts locked up tight where you need to make adjustments to the timing.

The mint green is period correct, but it's a little beat up here and there. Nothing horrible and I generally like the color, but it drives my OCD nuts to sit at a machine that I just rebuilt and stare at a big paint chip or rust bubble. So I'm thinking I'm going to repaint it the same Rustoleum metallic turquoise I used on my TH42:

fr_3827.jpg

Should look nice and the color still has that funky 50's vibe.

Next up is to do something about that proprietary needle size.

The problem is the needle is the same size as a standard 15x1 needle from shank to thread hole, but it's shorter by approx 1mm from thread hole to needle tip. The machine can actually run standard 15x1 sized needles, you just have to make a few mods if you want to do anything besides a straight stitch (I need zig zag for canvas projects). You can clearance the bobbin case or order a newer replacement that has the needle cut out already modified. I've clearances mine, but also have a few new ones on order.

I've also noticed that the longer needle tip comes dangerously close to the hook driver case shield, there's even a few little "nibbles" where it tried to strike it. Many try to fix this by messing with the feed dog/hook timing, but that just throws the whole machine out of time. Again, you can clearance the shield yourself (like the bobbin case) with a Dremel,. But I've ordered a Pfaff 130 hook driver since the Pfaff uses 15x1 needles and that's the patent Singer licensed to make the 306/319 machines. So I'm hoping the Pfaff hook will fit on the 319's hook driver gearbox and then the machine should take 15x1needles just like a Pfaff 130 does.

Next up is the motor. It's a little .5 amp resistance controlled motor. Fine enough to do light weight garments, but it's lacking in speed, torque and the slow speed control-ability is pretty poor. Since I do a lot of heavy, precise woork, I need low speed control more than outright speed. I swapped out the resistance pedal for an electronic pedal (pwm) a while ago and while it was a big leap in slow speed control-ability, it doesn't do much for torque and piercing power.

So I'm going to go a little radical here and dump the little OEM motor for a servo motor like I put on my industrial. That thing will slow speed punch through leather with ease. It means going from a .5 amp to approx a 4-5 amp motor (ie: 1/15 hp to 3/4), but I'm swapping mainly for better slow speed control and low speed power. Yes, you could probably wear out a domestic with that servo motor, but my use is infrequent and slow, so the extra power shouldn't hurt much of anything. If it does, it's just an opportunity to fire up the lathe/mill and make a few improved parts. Here's an image of one someone changed on a Pfaff 260 to a servo motor:

Pfaff_260_servo.jpg.58ae157b960480925d36eec57ac0a552.jpg

He mounted his on top of the table, mine will go under-mount like my commercial.

The machining part is the hand wheel. Since the 319 is a domestic machine, the pulley is only set up for a little 3/16 motor belt (not much more than a piece of rubber string really), where the commercial motor uses a much wider belt. Plan is to just grab a nice chunk of 6061 and turn out a new hand wheel like the guy did on the Pfaff further up the post.

Should be a fun project and hopefully only improve the little 319.

Watch this space for more as it happens.....
 
Last edited:
When my mom passed I wanted my mom’s Pfaff 332. My parents bought it in the 50’s new. She had it worked on and it never worked right after according everybody. I always wanted to be able to sew and I thought that it might be a good machine. My wife could never get it to work so I gave it to one of my siblings and bought my wife a little singer which she has been ecstatic with. Was that 332 good and just needed someone who knew what they were doing?
 
When my mom passed I wanted my mom’s Pfaff 332. My parents bought it in the 50’s new. She had it worked on and it never worked right after according everybody. I always wanted to be able to sew and I thought that it might be a good machine. My wife could never get it to work so I gave it to one of my siblings and bought my wife a little singer which she has been ecstatic with. Was that 332 good and just needed someone who knew what they were doing?
Can't go wrong with an all metal Pfaff. Heck for strong machines. Fine, high quality, German designed machines. Descended from the Pfaff 130 design. I'd take one in a heartbeat if it was offered to me.

But, you need to find an "old" repair shop in order to get it fixed/timed properly. The newer shops are like everything else these days: parts changers or throw it away and buy another (You know the usual bs line: “not worth fixing, but we’ve got this one on sale this week”).

The timing of the hook to the needle is usually the problem when they don't stitch right, but it can also be the feed dog timing. Other than that, not a lot to go wrong on these old machines, except getting gummed up from dried out oil and grease.

Old sewing machines are kind of like old lathes and such: if you want it done right, you have to learn to do it yourself. Today's throw away society has no interest in fixing or adjusting anything. Consumerism at it's best.....
 
Last edited:
Awesome timing on this thread. I just picked up a Singer 306K, so all the mods you’re doing cross over to mine as well.

I’m a sewing machine novice but my wife has some experience.

John
 
When my wife and I started dating I thought I would buy her a sewing machine so she could sew like my mom. I’m pretty sure I’ve used that Kenmore about 10 times for every one she used it lol . Every once in awhile I look for a used industrial machine , I really don’t know what I’d be looking at . You seem knowledgeable about them . If I find one that’s in my price range I’ll make a thread
 
Okay, just going to clean and lubricate the 306.

Just like with other machines I’m open to lubricant suggestions. Is the old 3 in 1 oil still the way to go, or is there something better now?

John
 
What would be a good machine for leather work? Like 7-9 thickness want to try and make some holsters.
 
Awesome timing on this thread. I just picked up a Singer 306K, so all the mods you’re doing cross over to mine as well.

I’m a sewing machine novice but my wife has some experience.

John
Cool. The 206/306 was the predecessor to the 319/320. Same scheme, a few different parts. Biggest change from the 306 is the interchangeable stitch "cams" for different stitches:

photo3.png


That's just a sample, the 319/320 will do far more by swapping the cams or mixing how many of the stitch levers you select....
 
What would be a good machine for leather work? Like 7-9 thickness want to try and make some holsters.
You're going to want a heavy machine to handle that. Definitely a walking foot and compound feed if you can get it. Those are not cheap.....you might get away with one of the sailright walking foot machines, but you're still well over a grand.

might be worth your while to look at the Chinese "cobblers" machine you can buy off ebay for 100-150 bucks. It's fairly simple and crude as well as all manual. But it will punch through nearly any thickness leather you can throw at it:


It's manageable if you're only making holsters. Not a lot of sewing to do on those. It's also nice and slow so it's easy to place your stitches right where you want them. Speed is not a plus when sewing thick leather objects.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top