[C38] Monster II Balance Wheel. Sailrite sewing machine

[Don Strong]

Max: Peggy has a hugely important suggestion, to avail yourself of the 
Monster Balance wheel from Sailright. It will empower you to penetrate 
additional layers of fabric.
Next, consider upgrading an industrial sewing table (Google it) with a 
large, low geared pulley; even more layers to penetrate with the low 
gear. You mount your Sailrite machine on the table. Then you can 
consider the larger motor. My pal has one of these rigs in his garage, 
buried under other cool stuff. He gets it out to help me with difficult 
sewing; we once did several layers of Sunbrella hitched to clear plastic 
windows and a trim strip. With the table, the low gear, and the big 
motor you will be talking 9 layers of Sunbrella! The problem that my pal 
and I have is the lack of a Peggy. Our seams wander all over the place, 
like a GPS course in a shifting tide.
Regards, Don

On 1/20/11 7:09 PM, Max Soto wrote:
> Thanks a lot for all the comments!
>
> It might not be an industrial machine, and suitable for heavy work, 
> but as George stated, "it might work for personal work", this is 
> exactly what I need it for... Just for the kind of projects that Don, 
> Craig and Peggy use it....
> Also, the options, the bunch of online "how to" videos that they have 
> will help a lot ,  and the best thing is that I have heard that they 
> have great support over their products....
> Old Singers are a very good machines, they will be a lot cheaper and 
> I'll be able to find one and the  spares here in Costa Rica, but I'm 
> not sure if they have walking foot, or if I'll be able to handle it 
> because they do require some experience and are not as user friendly 
> as the Sailrite machines... If I buy one here, I'll save around $200 
> in shipping and taxes, but I'll never find a Sailrite here.......
> so I'm going to give it some thoughts and check if I can get a good 
> deal somewhere for a Sailrite...
>
> Thank again,
> Max
>
> 2011/1/20 Peggy Droesch <saintpeg at earthlink.net 
> <mailto:saintpeg at earthlink.net>>
>
>     Max,
>
>     As a recent (3 yrs) owner of a C38 I don't usually have much to
>     contribute
>     in the way of technical info -- but as a lifelong sewer I can
>     confidently
>     chime in on this one!!
>
>     I bought a Sailrite machine (the LSZ-1, the one that does straight
>     & zigzag
>     stitches) -- an older version that Sailrite has since made a number of
>     technical improvements to. Got it used from a dock friend, another
>     home
>     sewer, who hated it & was happy to unload it. Her problem with it
>     was its
>     fussiness, it is a machine that demands careful adjustment of the
>     thread
>     tension before it will sew properly. I put a little time into
>     fiddling with
>     it during a 'test drive', learned its quirks & figured out how to
>     work with
>     it. I think I got a deal & would gladly recommend it.
>
>     It works well with up to nine layers of Sunbrella (though it needs
>     a little
>     manual assistance getting through that much fabric -- more below). You
>     definitely need the walking foot for the kind of sewing we do for
>     our boats
>     -- my German home machine could manage most of the canvaswork
>     except for
>     the fact that it doesn't have a walking foot. When I finally get
>     around to
>     ordering a cruising spinnaker kit, I know this machine will have
>     no problem
>     helping me crank it out. Rory & I are still chewing over the idea of a
>     stackpack, but it won't have any problem sewing that either.
>
>     One upgrade that I plan to buy for my machine is the 'Monster
>     Wheel' - a
>     heavyweight balance wheel that helps drive the needle through multiple
>     layers of fabric, or through heavy material like sailcloth (it
>     also helps
>     you sew when you can't plug in to shore power). I have to help my
>     machine
>     along with manual turning of the original-equipment balance wheel
>     when I
>     try to sew through many layers of canvas. I made an anchor riding
>     sail from
>     one of Sailrite's kits, easy project, the LSZ-1 breezed right
>     through it.
>     But when I tried a bit of repair work on our genoa it gagged on
>     the heavy
>     Dacron sailcloth, couldn't put a needle through it. So you do need the
>     extra weight behind the drive mechanism if you plan to do your own
>     sailwork.
>
>     Good luck --
>
>     Peggy
>     No Name Yet, #231
>     San Francisc
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Listserve mailing list
>     Listserve at catalina38.org <mailto:Listserve at catalina38.org>
>     http://catalina38.org/mailman/listinfo/listserve_catalina38.org
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Max Soto
> C38 #198 ESTANCIA
> Puntarenas, Costa Rica
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Listserve mailing list
> Listserve at catalina38.org
> http://catalina38.org/mailman/listinfo/listserve_catalina38.org

-- 
Donald R. Strong
Professor
Dept. of Evolution and Ecology
University of California, Davis 95616

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://catalina38.org/pipermail/listserve_catalina38.org/attachments/20110121/8cd96319/attachment-0001.htm>