Originally Posted by Prism99

I'm not sure from your description if you would really want an industrial machine. As others have mentioned, there are heavy-duty domestic machines that would seem to fill your needs. Some of the drawbacks of industrial machines include: more difficult to re-sell, heavier and therefore less portable, probably less widely serviceable and more expensive to service (ideally, of course, you would never need servicing, but....), less versatile (a one-job type of machine). Some industrial machines are more complicated to thread, although this might not be the case for a straight-stitch machine. I think the main reason for purchasing an industrial machine is if you want to do lots of very fast production stitching. Sewing through heavier materials doesn't seem like a sufficient reason, since there are so many domestic machine options that will handle heavier materials just fine (including some of the old Singers, such as the 201).