My wife and I are going to tackle our upholstery in our coupe. We are looking into a used machine, any tips? Feel free to share pictures of machines and your upholstery.
Not about equipment, be certain to make y'self comfortable. I had a job running a heavy power machine sewing heavy fiberglas window shades. The arrangement involved a standing position. Wound up walking funny for a time, pain in the back.
Roothawg started a thread 5 years ago, that I responded to in post #183. Other than practicing and honing my limited skills, I haven't taken on an automotive upholstery project yet. Still plan to though. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-upholstery-thread-to-end-all-threads.1216758/
Chip did one too, a while back. I'd suggest doing a few searches here, I'm sure there are many older threads. The info aside from pricing should be the same.
3 tips 1: get a walking foot machine 2: if it is more expensive, still get a walking foot machine 3: never never never start tailoring your wife's clothes. It will be the end of your free time There is a pretty good "show us your sewing projects" thread over on the garagejournal https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/show-us-your-sewing-projects.331931/
It seems that in the art of sewing, 12 different folks will develop 12 different methods of accomplishing the same task. Interesting topic.
I am quite experienced Ranging from making Bikinis smaller to making Circus Tents bigger. I am a qualified "motor trimmer" (but the $$$$ was in heavier industries) You need a good grasp of shape, and technique then quality is irrelevant. I've done a lot a crazy things like retrimming my younger brothers car/piss-wagon in fluro pink vinyl (it made him feel sick when out drinking ) Use your imagination
I don't drink. I did this to prank my younger brother. It cost me about $14 in materials in a $200 English Zephyr. It stopped him drinking and driving. I do furniture, and clothing etc. But understand skills and materials do not overcome poor tastes Here's some curtains I did for my wife Women love this frilly shit
The old singer commercial machines from the 50's are still highly rated, and still have parts, and still have repair men that know how they run. There are favorite models, go to the singer sight to study. are there newer better options around? you bet, but cost triples.
I second and third the advice on the walking foot machine. I did the upholstery for my coupe with a a common household machine and it sucked and I was limited on what I could do. I found this Adler for a couple hundred bucks on fb marketplace. If you keep your eye out one will pop up, maybe not that cheap but I've seen ones for 500 pop up. This thing will sew through anything and really jams along. Consew, Juki, Adler, they're all pretty sweet. Pleats and such are a piece of cake. And it's rad to fix shit like backpack straps and such. Its come in handy quite a bit.
When powering your machine , try & get a servo motor vs a clutch motor , servo offers far better control / operation .
1300rpm clutch motors are best. You can place the needle exactly where you want it with clutch control. Servo motors "cycle" to easily and best left for clothing factories. You are better off learning skills than relying on a machine (sort of like learning to drive a stick vs automatic) @Dreddybear The Adler is my weapon of choice A 60 year old Adler sews better than most new machines (and very rebuildable)
Walking foot machine for sure. Invest a lot of hours on YouTube, see Cechaflow channel, great stuff. Chris
Main thing to watch out for is off brands that are full of cheap plastic parts. The major brands are all pretty good machines, and will still have support if you needed parts or servicing. I looked for many weeks trying to find a decent used machine that wouldn't cost more then $500 and I only found commercial machines used at around $1000 locally. I ended up buying an old 1950's Singer a guy had gone through and used it for sewing up the sails on his sailboat. It's a great machine, but one big drawback; no reverse! Whenever I needed to reverse it I left the needle down, and raised the foot to turn the material 180 and then go back. But it did the job, and I kept it since it was $200 and I might need to do some small upholstery repair again someday.
This is where it comes down to your location, servicing. Unless you are going to learn how to fully repair and service, you are going to rely on who's in your area. That might affect which machines to consider buying, although any good machine should be able to be worked on. If the local shop has preferences and guidance, it pays to listen. The older machines are like HAMB engines, they respond well to a knowledgeable hand tuning them.
I've got a Consew 206 with reverse, I've also had a Consew 225 without reverse. Both are/were great walking foot machines. On the 225, I modified the foot pedal linkage in order slow down the speed and engagement (it seemed to have a hair trigger between harmless stopped and eat your fingers nuclear fast!!). I purchased a $200+/- servo motor kit for the 206 and love it. Very controllable (especially for us beginner types). Oh, and a warning, you will use it for hemming jeans! Also, there are various feet available which really help out...as in welting feet of different diameters, left side walking right side walking, etc.. I bought a bunch of them online (I can take a photo when I get down to the shop later if you'd like). They weren't expensive, but again very helpful for me as a beginner. The other very useful item is to download the operating manual on line if at all possible...will save hours of frustration. Lastly of interest...when I first got my 225, the top stitch was perfect, bottom looked like a rats nest. I was told it was a tension issue...no matter what I did to adjust the tension, it didn't make a difference. I found online, the US military paratroopers guide to field repairs and set-up...for this exact machine. It provided a step by step idiot proof description of setting all the adjustments to bring the timing of the machine into proper sequence...solved the problem.
My pal Dave uses a Juki machine, Examples of his work. HRP This was his '32 pickup My old beater, Brenda's Ranch Wagon
More of Daves work, he did all these cars with the same machine. This is Dave's newest build & his own '52 truck.
We are lucky to have a couple great sewing machine service centers close by. One has been in business since the late 1950's and is maybe 6 blocks away. The other is about 20 miles away, but owned by a guy I know so he gives me great pricing on supplies. My granddaughter just started working for him a month ago, and he's training her to do machine repair! So I might even get repairs done even cheaper once she's got it down. He said she's learning faster than anyone he's ever taught, so that's great too.
When I had my upholstery shop I used a Juki. Loved that machine. Sold it with the shop. Now I have a Consew, great machine, but the bobbin placement isn’t as convenient as the Juki. But any name brand with walking foot, reverse, should do you well. Good parts availability, serviceable, and you can find good well cared for machines in my area for around $400-600. Doesn’t take a whole lot of practice to get somewhat proficient, but it does take practice. And I wholeheartedly second the servo motor. It will save you a lot of headaches as a beginner. I wish I had known about them much sooner.
If you can,get a pro machine with walking foot! Back when I redid my old hotrod 28A and also my Son's 23T, I did hunt for a pro walking foot. Only one I had found,was both to high$ and way too fast { cost of slowing it down,was also too high. I ended up with a weekend yard sale " House wife [Kenmore/Sears] older modal with medal gearing ,used at $15 . Played around with it,and got what I needed. I did a TECH for HAMB,on how an what I did,with lot of photos and tips=That canbe handy for anyone doing there own,with or with out the higher $ Pro Walking foot. Here is the link for my TECH, for anyone that could use a few tips.; https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-sew-at-home-upholsrety-hot-rod.604077/
I've heard great things about the Consew 206 like what Anothercarguy has, it's a workhorse, well supported, has a walking foot and reverse. I have a Consew 118 which has all the same stuff, although it's older and threads differently, but the 118 seems to go cheaper than the 206. I paid $400 for it from a motorcycle club who intended to use it to sew on jacket patches but it didn't get used, and I ponied up anotheer $150 for a servo motor, which really does help. I'm going to put a smaller pulley on it to make it even slower. Juki and Pfaff seem to be the other top quality names for machines. I'm not very good yet, but it's fun to do and I really want to do more of it, this summer I bought a shitload of materials from an upholstery shop retirement auction to play with, which will be nice because I can screw up a lot of stuff and start over when a roll of vinyl only cost me 6 bucks. There's a Youtube channel called Old School Auto Upholstery Techniques that I really really like. He's got videos for most of the type of stuff we would ever do, he's very good at explaining what he's doing and why, and if you post a question to him he'll almost always answer it. The first seat I did for my girlfriend's Gremlin I basically followed one of his videos step by step for a bench seat, and I learned a ton. Mine didn't turn out nearly as good as his, but I figure I'll get better with practice and redo it again later.
I'm posting from a beginner's view point. I have a Consew 206r portable. It's a walking foot with reverse with a servo motor. It also is a short arm machine. My advice is this: based on the storage space you have, get the longest arm you can. If you have the funds get a compound walking and needle machine. Make the largest table possible to slid work into the machine and back out. It needs to be a smooth top for obvious reasons. Get prepared for many educations. I struggled with different materials in trying to get the proper tension on the seat cover when putting it in it's final place. I found that using light plastic over the foam greatly reduced the effort to install the covers. If you look at the long thread on the hamb and digest everything in it, you may avoid many problems. All of this being said, in my career, painting and upholstery are as rewarding as anything I do. I build engines, chassis and complete cars from ground up. You can take an ugly duckling and paint it and get a feeling of satisfaction that is quite good. You may be one of those people that get it right the 1st time but you might consider using cheap material to start with until you see how your skills progress. As you might imagine, there are many youtube videos that are quite helpful rather than just reading books. I have used both. Best wishes for your project.
True. My opinion is not trying to be a pissing match. Just buy whatever is available cheap. [a walking foot is more important than a servo motor] Even though I don't like servo motors I would still use one.[and not change it] @nochop like engineering with upholstery (trimming) the real skills are in the cutting not the joining. So get an understanding of shape. If you practice by doing repairs you will need to dismantle and get a good understanding of other people's techniques. The other skill is Fitting! You can do wonders manipulating during the install. Once you go down this rabbit hole you will discover that upholstery etc is actually crap , hidden under a nice cover.
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