Quiltingboard Forums - industrial sewing machine

So far I have not found a home model sewing machine which will sew through any thing. I am buying mine because I want to sew heavier fabric. They do have resale value. You are correct many of them are single purpose machines. They do last forever and one 50 years old is likely to be quite good. The newer ones have Servo motors instead of the clutch, even the clutch is quite easy to use. The quality of the bags I do suffered so much I quit making them out of upholstery fabric until I get my new Juki.
If you are only sewing quilts, a few bags out of cotton for fun etc a home machine is fine. For a serious sewer, we need a work horse.
Most sewing machine repair folks can repair an industrial and you would be amazed at how many of those guys make house calls.

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Originally Posted by Prism99 (Post 4757917)

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).