- Tue Nov 27, 2018 4:52 pm
#3596
Hello everyone
I apologise if this question has already been asked a million times but I can't seem to find the right answer.
I'm just starting out in trying to learn upholstery with the eventual aim of re-trimming a set of Recaro seats. I didn't want to invest too much money to begin with in case I was no good at trimming so I decided to start off with a heavy duty domestic machine. I bought myself a Singer 4432 and began to practice using vinyl and hoped to work my way up to using leather at a later date once I'd got my skills honed and my patterns correct.
My first efforts were ok considering I'd never even touched a sewing machine before but I am having some problems which mostly seem to be due to the sewing machine. It copes fine with physically sewing the vinyl but I find that the machine is too fast to allow good control and precision, I think it runs at something like 1100 spm. I have also found that there is not enough space under the presser foot to be able to sew the top stitching on French seams and as a result the stitches get bunched up and uneven and I get a lot of jams. I bought a voltage controller to try to slow the machine down but its still too fast and I bought a walking foot to try to help the materials feed through better but its now pretty obvious that my machine isn't suitable for what I want to do. I therefore wondered if anyone could give me some advice on the best type of machine for the job.
Here is a picture of my first attempt at a bolster, I know the top stitching is awful but that's due to the problems mentioned above, the machine runs too fast and is very difficult to control and get it to go in a straight line and the machine doesn't cope well with thick materials and can't pull them through easily. I also need to make a few adjustments to my pattern and to remove some material from the seam on the reverse side to follow the curves better, its my first attempt so it was bound to be less than good.
P4291490.JPG (946.66 KiB) Viewed 21081 times
I don't really have the space for a full size industrial machine to be permanently set up but I guess if this is the only suitable option I will have to try to find a solution. I was wondering if anyone had any opinions about the Sailrite machines? To me they look a bit old fashioned and are very expensive for what they are but they do seem to do the job and they are at least compact enough to be stored away when not in use. I have read about the cheaper Chinese copies and it looks as though they are a false economy but I wondered if anyone had any experience of the Omega versions of this type of machine? http://walking-foot.com/
I suppose what I really need is something with plenty of space under the foot and a machine that is able to run nice and slow to give me the precision I need. I will be working with leather and some upholstery fabrics and a maximum foam thickness of around 15mm. Any advice would be much appreciated, this is the kind of thing I would eventually like to achieve:
90238421a3938fe2a19ac06fc21a300d.jpg (73.41 KiB) Viewed 21079 times
thanks very much
I apologise if this question has already been asked a million times but I can't seem to find the right answer.
I'm just starting out in trying to learn upholstery with the eventual aim of re-trimming a set of Recaro seats. I didn't want to invest too much money to begin with in case I was no good at trimming so I decided to start off with a heavy duty domestic machine. I bought myself a Singer 4432 and began to practice using vinyl and hoped to work my way up to using leather at a later date once I'd got my skills honed and my patterns correct.
My first efforts were ok considering I'd never even touched a sewing machine before but I am having some problems which mostly seem to be due to the sewing machine. It copes fine with physically sewing the vinyl but I find that the machine is too fast to allow good control and precision, I think it runs at something like 1100 spm. I have also found that there is not enough space under the presser foot to be able to sew the top stitching on French seams and as a result the stitches get bunched up and uneven and I get a lot of jams. I bought a voltage controller to try to slow the machine down but its still too fast and I bought a walking foot to try to help the materials feed through better but its now pretty obvious that my machine isn't suitable for what I want to do. I therefore wondered if anyone could give me some advice on the best type of machine for the job.
Here is a picture of my first attempt at a bolster, I know the top stitching is awful but that's due to the problems mentioned above, the machine runs too fast and is very difficult to control and get it to go in a straight line and the machine doesn't cope well with thick materials and can't pull them through easily. I also need to make a few adjustments to my pattern and to remove some material from the seam on the reverse side to follow the curves better, its my first attempt so it was bound to be less than good.
I suppose what I really need is something with plenty of space under the foot and a machine that is able to run nice and slow to give me the precision I need. I will be working with leather and some upholstery fabrics and a maximum foam thickness of around 15mm. Any advice would be much appreciated, this is the kind of thing I would eventually like to achieve:
thanks very much
Only thing Ill add is buying a cheep used walking foot machine and putting a servo motor on it is also a great butget option.
, but I think it was quirky at best. I didn’t want to get a machine I would have to upgrade from quickly, and I didn’t want a machine that might need attention to get working properly. This was the best option for me. Your mileage may vary.
So they are out there. You just need to keep looking for a few months.
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