industrial grade sewing machine for camalot slings

[markwebster]

Anybody have any suggestions for an industrial grade sewing machine for stuff like repairing backpacks, and sewing new slings on camalots? Seems like I'm always fixing a backpack, or building a chalk bag from scratch. My old machine isn't up to the task of sewing through the super thick materials I sew...like a quarter inch of stacked seat belt webbing, full grain cowhide...stuff like that. Nobody makes anything durable anymore...wanna make my own stuff, but need a really beefy machine so I don't have to hand sew it with needles and vice grips. Recommendations, on brands or models, pictures?

I'm thinking one of those old 1850 cowboy singers would be about right. Fix a saddle, or sew a pair of jeans.

[OlympicMtnBoy]

There are probably others who know more, but sometimes you can find industrial machines on Craigslist, just make sure you can find parts and probably pay someone to clean and tune it. Those really old Singers can also do the job and can still sometimes be found at Goodwill and the like. Most industrial machines do one very fast straight stitch and not much else, look for one made for strength instead of speed.

 

If you find something heavy duty but portable let me know, I need something that fits in my apartment without room for a whole table setup.

 

For cam slings you'll need a bartacker, but really I'd just pay the $3-4 each to get them reslung by someone with a computer controlled machine for consistency and reliable stitches. Some home machines and a few others will do a zig-zag stitch which is very handy for repairs and can also be used to make a sort-of bartack which works well for repairing gear, chalk bag belts, etc, but i wouldn't use it for life support.

[sweatinoutliquor]

I'd just pay the $3-4 each to get them reslung by someone with a computer controlled machine for consistency

 

I think Yates does a pretty good job with this. Perhaps get the double sling and think of it as an upgrade!

[wfinley]

A friend of mine bought an industrial sewing machine off CraigsList. He was able to set up a couple hours with the person who sold it who walked him through the basics. I can't recommend any brands though...

[markwebster]

I used to sew my own leg loops when all we had was a 2 inch webbing for a swami. This was pre-harness days. That was with my home machine. It's pretty obvious when stitching is weak, look at any cheap back pack. You can test your work by dropping heavy bags off buildings, see what breaks, what holds. Just need a better machine. I trust myself and my common sense better than some blue collar slave working for peanuts. I'm a perfectionist, and it's my life at stake.

[fenderfour]

I have one of these:

http://www.sailrite.com/Ultrafeed-LSZ-1-Walking-Foot-Sewing-Machine

 

It will sew through anything that you put under the foot (about 1/4").

 

With a little adjustment of the tension, you can get nice bartacks in thicker fabrics. It can handle the burliest of threads. I've used it to make haulbags out of 42oz VCP.

 

The machine comes with a decne tcase and is about the same size as a normal sewing machine.

 

I would like to get a servo motor for mine. It would give me instant start and stop.

 

 

Some bigger machines:

 

http://www.seattlefabrics.com/machines.htm

 

[hydroman]

I don’t have a specific recommendation for a machine but I will second the vote to send out your stuff for professional bar tacks on items that you trust your life to. Bartacks are made by bartack machines. They are notoriously finicky and would be a waste of your money since that’s all they do. You can get something close to a bartack with a zigzag stitch which is fine for most items (think packs, etc.) but for stuff like slings/harnesses I would send them out on occasion and not mess around.

Getting a good industrial machine that works fine for home can be difficult. Most of them go straight and must faster than you need. If you do go that route I’d look for one with a servo motor. I’ve tried out the ones at Seattle Fabrics and they seemed to work pretty well. They are new though and will run you $1200 or so.

 

[Draagun1]

Used to make martial arts equip a little ways back.Bought a cheap used Newhome.probably 1960's regular sewing machine.I explained to the dealer what I was doing with it and he grabbed my vinyl tripled it and grabbed a army canvas type belt and proceeded to go back and forth with great ease.

May be old stuff but the steel gears versus nylon now is the ticket.

Gave it to my dads new wife which alters clothes and she still uses it 20+ years now.

[froodish]

There was a good thread on the taco a while back...the google machine delivers:

 

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=560592&tn=0&mr=0

 

 

[markwebster]

that sailright machine looks awesome! is it as good as it looks in those videos? Thing looks too good to be true. Cool that they have something similar in Seattle. I'll need to go look at them and start educating myself.

[markwebster]

excellent links, thanks! Now I just need to get to work to earn some money to pay for a new toy.

[montypiton]

try upholstery suppliers, sail-makers, and shoe-repair suppliers. these trades all use ultra-beefy machines. I used a pfaff upholstery machine for a custom sewing business I had back in the early eighties, and it was dynamite. If you're going to make packs, or will be wanting to do much interior sewing, consider a 'mckay -stitcher', designed to work inside of shoes and boots for shoe/boot manufacture and repair. also, the venerable "speedy-stitcher-sewing-awl", available from campmor.com, works wonders for small jobs. I rig mine with 50lb spectra fishing line these days. helluval lot cheaper than $1500+ for that upholstery machine, and a lot less maintenance...

[Vickster]

Markwebster, here you go.....

 

I was looking for a beefy sewing machine last year. After extensive research, I got a Singer Slat O Matic Rocketeer for $10 off craigslist. It is the last all metal singer made before they came out with plastic ones. You can find these on craigslist any week.....

 

I have yet to find fabric that my Rocketeer will not punch through. It punches through 3 layers of ballistic nylon like butter, not to mention 2-3 layers of fairly thick leather. The old singers run like freight trains and you can find people practically giving them away!

 

You can read about them here http://www.geocities.com/possumjim/xhtml/collect_sewing_500a.html

http://www.singer500a.info/index.htm

 

Best Bang for the buck hands down.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Vickster

[crackers]

I make packs for a living. I probably have the most machines of anybody who visits this site on a regular basis, and I definitely have opinions. Your mileage may vary, etcetera...warning: long ramble ahead. I would say that since this is related to my business, I certainly have a conservative approach. I have never nor will I ever make life support or protective gear. There are just too many variables...

 

If you're talking life support, don't do it.

 

No offense, but since you've got little to no comprehension of what you're doing, it would seem to me that you'd be smart outsourcing life support stuff. Make some packs, make haul bags, make tons of stuff, but I'd really consider leaving life support stuff alone for awhile or for ever. Have fun, don't create situations where you're wondering if you're going to kill a friend.

 

As far as I know, you don't use Nylon in outdoor life support bartacks, you use bonded polyester. Polyester has significantly better resistance to UV degradation and to salt. Polyester is about 90% as strong as nylon and doesn't go bad in the sun. I believe that most climbing stuff is done with T-70 (aka 69 aka E) weight bonded polyester thread, with some T-90 thrown in. It's more than strong enough for our systems.

 

I have reason to believe that the best machines for doing bartacks on things like cam slings are actually not computer controlled but instead mechanical cam machines (some do have computer controlled feed systems, but that's another story). Mechanical cam machines are significantly more robust and regular than computer controlled machines. For manufacturing, you have got to be able to test, prove and retest your manufacturing systems, and mechanical cam machines are way better at that.

 

As an aside, the average bar tack machine has something in the neighborhood of 500 rotating parts. Richard Moore got into building tools because of his work making sewing machine tooling for the Singer Sewing Machine company...if you have any idea who he was, it's pretty remarkable. If you don't, let's just say that Moore and his son Wayne invented machining in the millionths of inch tolerance world. Like 25 millionths of an inch over six feet and incomprehensible accuracy like that...

 

Taking a well maintained, accurate mechanical cam machine and your polyester thread, you next determine needle type and needle size that you'll be working with. You now know that the maximum working temperature of the bonded polyester thread is 212 degrees fahrenheit, so you do some quick tests and figure out you need a thread cooler. When you use a regular bar tack machine -- like the ones at my shop -- we can easily be running up to 200 degrees by the end of a set of tacks. Obviously, since it's your life we're talking about, you'd want to stay way below that, say below 150.

 

Getting my drift? It looks like a nice little stitch, can't be that complex, well...

 

Mechanical cam bar tackers with the appropriate parts start around $1800. You should buy them new for life support stuff. You can pick up an old electronic bar tacker starting around $2k. They start new around $4,500 and go up to around $100,000 for the really cool ones. You can also spend a couple of tens of thousands of dollars on platen tables, presser feet, attachments, and the whole set of tools that accompany real machines.

 

I highly unrecommend the sailrite machines. What's your budget? How often will you really use it? Sailrite sells machines that would never be used in an industrial setting to folks getting in over their heads.

 

I'd really recommend finding some local community college or similar and taking a sewing class. Get some time on a plain jane straight stitch machine and see what it can do. It's the classic case of operator skill versus machine ability. Learn to sew well and the machine won't fail you.

 

I'd really recommend getting a needle feed machine with an electronic servo motor and control box if you can afford it. If you're going to use it a lot, and you can find one and afford it, get an automatic trimmer machine. It would probably cost you between $1,000 and $2,000 for a used machine like that, but without computer control or the trimmer, it'd be less than a $1,000 -- there appears to be one on seattle craigslist for $700 right now. For what you want to sew, it will help alleviate your relative lack of skill.

 

A servo motor, as somebody else wrote, is substantially quieter, more energy efficient and more controllable. You can throttle down the maximum speed on most servo motors to allow you to sew at a comfortable max. As you get better, open up the throttle. I like sewing around 2700 stitches / minute, while most of my sewers like being around 3500. It's rare for my interns or my non-sewer employees to be comfortable much over 1000. You can buy a servo motor off ebay for a hundred bucks or so.

 

An electronic control box does a ton of things. Since I've already written too much, let's say that one feature is to start the first X stitches at a slow speed. It help make you sew straight lines like a pro. Most electronic control boxes come with servo motors. I think that a good electronic control box and servo motor combination is probably about a $1,000.

 

The trimmer cuts the thread. You reach the end of the seam, you do something, and the threads are cut. Perhaps it sounds simple, but if you're spending a lot of time on the machine, you will fall in love with this feature.

 

I'd recommend a needle feed for a few reasons:

 

You're more likely to find 110v electronic machines. 220v3phase is a pain in the butt. Avoid it.

 

It's much easier to learn to sew with a needle feed. Learning to sew with most walking foot machines is kind of like learning to drive a tank. It will be easier for you to control what you're sewing and easier to keep things straight with a needle feed. There are some mellow walking foot machines, but they tend to be significantly more expensive -- the very nice Mitsubishi LU2-4710 walking foot machines retail for something north of $5,000.

 

Another reason is because of the relative ease of getting feet and attachments for needle feed machines over walking foot machines. With industrial machines, a lot of the things you want to do are semi-automated to make it easier. You can afford these parts for a needle feed or a regular drop feed machine. For example, I just bought a couple of different feet for doing the topstitch where two pieces of fabric come together. For our needle feed machines, I bought the four I wanted for less than $50. For my walking foot machine, one foot was $350. I'm going to make sure our production will really really benefit before buying the second one.

 

Oh, btw, for repairing stuff, you really want a cylinder bed machine. Think expensive. Think advanced sewing skills. Also, the old Singers that Richard Moore developed the tooling for can sew through 1/2" plywood. They are amazing. I was just playing with one with 348 weight thread sewing together two 1/2" strips of plywood yesterday. Talk about sewing through your finger...

 

I think making your own gear is a ton of fun, and a really good hobby. If I can answer any other questions, go for it, but we're super busy these days and I don't get too much time in front of the computer. We have office hours twice a week at our factory down here in Portland, and you're more than welcome to swing by and check us out.

 

But please take my advice to heart...get John Yates to resling your camalots. Don't do it yourself.

[crackers]

...the venerable "speedy-stitcher-sewing-awl", available from campmor.com, works wonders for small jobs. I rig mine with 50lb spectra fishing line these days. helluval lot cheaper than $1500+ for that upholstery machine, and a lot less maintenance...

 

 

Amen on the speedy stitcher.

 

You know, with a mechanical machine, you're supposed to use two different thread coolers or sew at a a glacial rate with Dyneema / Spectra thread?

[markwebster]

to crackers:

thanks a lot for the long reply! I'm going to copy all this stuff to a word document so I can study it later. The expertise and knowledge of the people on this board is amazing. Sewing through 2 pieces of plywood! That is a great analogy, and that's the kind of horsepower I *didn't get* when my parents gave me my little machine for sewing bivy sacks 30 years ago.

 

thanks for steering me away from the sailright. It did look too good to be true. When I have the time I'll go to some pro sewing shops and take a tour. I agree that making your own stuff is very cool and a fun hobby. I love working with my hands. My computer job took that away from me, and I miss it.

 

And I promise not to sew my own slings...at least for a while until I am better educated and trained.

[Crillz]

Mark,

 

Next time we rope up together, make sure you tell me pre-climb if you rack home-sewn runners.

 

Have fun in Yos e mite!

[fenderfour]

Hey now, don't bash the sailrite too much. It's not meant to be an industrial machine. It's for hobbyists who want some horsepower but don't need to run the machine for 8 hours a day.

 

If I were starting a business I wouldn't get a sailrite, but I'm not. I'm just playing around.

[fenderfour]

Hey now, don't bash the sailrite too much. It's not meant to be an industrial machine. It's for hobbyists who want some horsepower but don't need to run the machine for 8 hours a day.

 

If I were starting a business I wouldn't get a sailrite, but I'm not. I'm just playing around.

[mark1980]

In construction we say. WHEN IN DOUBT, SUB IT OUT.