ThayerRags

I’m a fan of leather belting. My first Singer 29K70 came to me with old 1/4” leather belting on it. The kind that they used to make, using a fresh hair-on animal hide, manually clipping the hair off as close as possible, cutting the belt strip, and letting the belting dry. The hair side naturally turned under and to the inside when they cured it. Some spots of hair were still visible on my belt.


I had to replace the old belting because the previous owner had motorized the machine, and I wanted to convert it back to treadle. I bought new 1/4” belting for it, and I try to keep plenty on-hand of different sizes. I recently installed new 5/16” belting on my Consew 225 power stand when I added a speed reducer to it. That machine came to me with 5/16” leather belting on it, and it never seemed to be the runaway that some clutch motors tend to be. It had decent slow control. I think that the leather belting may have had something to do with it, by allowing more slippage, but I don’t know that as a fact.


I run leather belting on all of my treadles, and even on my handcrank bobbin winder that I use with my Singer 31-15.


CD in Oklahoma