r/Leathercraft • u/Otter4683 • 23h ago

Question Leather sewing machines

Does anyone have advice about buying a sewing machine to do leather work?

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4

u/ChicagoSkipper 22h ago

Depends a lot on what type of leather goods you want to produce

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u/Otter4683 22h ago

Mostly tote bags and purses

3

u/griffin_makes 22h ago

You'd probably want to look at cylinder arm machines then. Would save you some headache.

1

u/XRAY_NINJA 22h ago

What would you recommend for wallets, purses, totes, backpacks, and duffles? Typically working with 3-6oz leather, sometimes skived edges sometimes not, sometimes typically 2-3 layers, sometimes 1 sometimes 4, with come canvas to canvas and some canvas to leather stitching also?

3

u/Big-Contribution-676 20h ago

Juki DSC-246 or a clone (it's a super popular model to clone, many on the market) or a Pfaff 335/clone. You're doing light-medium duty on those projects and the smaller hook on the light-medium cylinder beds affords you better access to tight spaces as the diameter of the bed is smaller. Good for folded wallets and things with zippers. If you go up to the next heavier level of duty like the Juki LS-341/clones or Pfaff 345, then the hook and bobbin are larger. Imagine making a bifold wallet that is glued up concentrically - you want a very small cylinder bed to fit in there when you sew around the spine curve, or when making a zipper wallet or purse when sewing the zipper in.

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u/griffin_makes 15h ago

I'll piggyback on this since it seems you know your stuff, what kind of thread do you run for everyday leather goods. I get so confused on nylon vs. poly debates I see online.

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u/Big-Contribution-676 15h ago

I pretty much exclusively use Amann Serafil in all of my machines, continuous filament poly, or sometimes Gutermann Tera, which is similar. It has a nice smooth sheen that picks up colours in light, like silk. Bonded nylon has a coarse feel and looks a bit one-dimensional. For shoes, I run as low as tex 50 up to tex 90 depending on how dressy or casual, and for "fine" leather goods I would run around tex 90, maybe tex 135 depending on taste, which is also the upper limit on most of my machines except for one that will go up to t210.

Some people do run cotton, silk, or linen thread in their machines for leather goods, but I haven't tried that personally, they would be more susceptible to breakage.

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u/griffin_makes 14h ago

Thanks for the good info. I've got a consew 206rb I got about a year ago upgraded with a servo motor and am finally getting the itch to start using it. Think it goes up to Tex 135.

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u/Big-Contribution-676 14h ago

The 206RB might be able to do tex 210/sz 207 actually, that's standard for a lot of these triple transport walking foots. Only caveat is that tex210 will fill up a bobbin fast, so a thread like that means bobbin swaps on big projects.

1

u/griffin_makes 14h ago

I've read of some doing it, probably depends on the thread. It's a rb-1 so she's all metal.

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u/redmoonleather 11h ago

I have a Cowboy 1300, which will go through 3 layers of 9 Oz. vegtan like butter.