So last night we finally had a chance to sit down and play with the industrial I picked up back in March. I say "we" because it was an impromptu sewing lesson for DH. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone he was sewing, he doesn't think it's for him.
The project was an ankle weight for him to work the leg that was damaged in the accident in August. Sand, ziplock baggies, velcro and heavy IKEA curtain cutoffs.
It sounded like the perfect test for this machine.
It did very well and so did he. He didn't stitch through a finger and he might sew straighter than I do. So now that we know that the machine can be useful here, I need a needle plate and dogs for it.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]498301[/ATTACH]
The dogs it came with are 26603 and they match the broken plate 26605 that came with the machine as well.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]498302[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]498303[/ATTACH]
26605 is not easily available from the supplier I use, so I looked at other combinations and that's where my head exploded. I finally found this page:
http://www.sew4less.com/category/77/..._Needle_Plates that helped figure out which dogs for which plates. And I thought industrial needles were a pain to figure out! (OK, they are.)
(I'm going to detail the matches here in case someone else is looking for this info in the future)
Needle plates and feed dogs need to match each other or they don't work. They literally will not fit. You can see this above in the photo. There's no way for the old dogs and the new plate to work together.
I learned this the hard way when I emailed the "guru" at the supplier I use here in Canada told him which plate I was trying to replace and he said to pick which ever plate I wanted but didn't ask which dogs I had. The result? Dogs and needle plate not compatible. Luckily needle plates for industrial machines are not terribly costly.
The plate I ordered 147150LG - says it's a chain off plate with a large hole at the site above. (the spreadsheet for the supplier says "needleplate medium for 31-15" LOL!)
Huh? My tiny little brain says a chain off plate is for a serger or a machine that also does a chain stitch, like my 411G. What would it be for on an industrial lockstitch machine?
Is there any point in ordering the corresponding dogs (149062 or 149057)? What would I use that chaining plate for?
Probably the best plate and dogs for me is a "regular sewing" plate with the corresponding dogs (52032 and 52031) right? Mostly I think I'll do odd jobs on it. Both little jobs so far have involved velcro but that's extremely odd for me since I very rarely use velcro. I did have dreams of some device covers - eReader, iPad, etc. in clothing weight leather or denim weight something or other.
I'd love the 12482 and 12481 combo that's for light to medium leather but finding the roller foot to go with it might be a chore, so could tissue paper or a teflon foot maybe substitute here?