Shopping for Sewing Machine

[Phicong]

I have a 68 $ Brother and it has worked fine with my corduroy kilt and is fine with 6 layers of bull denim (the material weighs 2.7 lbs in the 5 yard kilt) and sews fake leather also just fine.

[emolas]

Tin cans? Try 3/4" plywood, the thread breaks after four or five stitches and trashes the needle but the look on peoples faces is great! I think what we were trying to say is if you can find an older all metal machine it's worth it for the long term durability and being able to sew heavier projects. If you have a machine like JimB and it works for you great. It's just when those of us who drive these things for a living tend to offer advice along those lines. I just asume that every body is sitting at a machine 10 hours a day

Never tried plywood but when I was in the Marine Corps we had a Singer class 7 that sewed through quarters with ease. I would rather have an ancient, clunky, all-metal beast that only sews one type of stitch in a straight line than one of the newer, fancy, plastic ones that you just put the material under and it makes the garment for you.

[Doc]

I have a class 7 at the shop. That thing is a beast. We have an air assist upgrade mounted to it, it sounds like a grumpy steam engine when you sew.

[kevinkinney]

Howdy,

If you feel the need to leap towards a lightweight industrial, Harbor Freight has some off brand drop feed straight stitch machines (no zig zag though) for just over $300. They're all metal light to mid weight machines that are fully capable of munching through any kilt fabrics. Delivery may kill you, but the excess weight and space requried to house one is well worth the price when your hobbies go feral.

We've got a stable of 12 monsters here, and we'll never regret buying any of them. Though some may sit idle for 6 months between use, they fire right up and work every time.

Give me an extra 20 sq feet of floor space, and I'll sneek over to Doc's and try to talk him out of his 7 Class. I could stitch a roof rack to my Subaru with that!

Kevin.

[Canuck]

I started with an old 1935 straight stitch singer worked extremly well.
Now in my stable is a Pfaff 463 (great machine with computer controled motor) Pfaff 1245 walking foot, Juki LU 563 walking foot, Adler 105(sews through plywood) Adler GK-373 walking foot. The adler 373 and the pfaff 1245 take turns in my movable workshop and gets it's power from solar panels.
Good luck hunting

[Doc]

I couda swore I had a big Singer here this morning..........Kevin?......