Upholstery and interior

Interior is actually where we sit and drive, and still we nearly never talk about upholstery.
Ask a hotrodder what he have in his (or hers!) garage. The answer starts with a welder and an air compressor (or what you call it). What did happen to the upholstery thing?
Do any of you have knowlegde of industrial sewing machines?
I intend to do the upholstery of my car.
I know about a couple of books and I will buy them when I start on the job.
I have came across a used Singer industrial sewing machine (pictured). Should I buy it (300$)? What should I look for to see if it's useless or good?
Any comments?

 

For best results sewing heavy materials look for a needle feed machine. Besides the lower feed dog moving your fabric through the needle also helps push things along. What model Singer is that? Hard to tell from the angle pictured. $300 for a simple single needle machine is a bit high. We generally pay around $100-$150 for a used single needle standard feed with a 3 phase clutch-type motor. Right now its a buyers market for industrial sewing machines as most US manufacturers have gone out of business. I've probably got 200 machines of different varieties in storage now. I'll probably ship them overseas where they will be useful. In all the hundreds of machines at my factory only 1 is a needle feed.

 

Can you explain what needle feed means?
I'll post a picture of the needle area. Maybee you can tell from that picture?

I also sent this picture to a professional car and boat upholstery guy, and he said the machine would fit very well for my use if I bought a special needle ment for leather.

But thank you anyway for useful information!

 

If its at all possible see if you can take a sewing class or something at a local high school, or adult education class.Its alot harder then it looks to sew something!!I bought a used sewing machine figuring i'd do the seats in my T. needless to say i got nowhere.had my friends wife do it.
The classes are fairly cheap, sometimes even fabric stores have a class.
JimV

 

you know the teeth under the fabric that pull the fabric along as you sew? on a normal machine there is only a set of teeth UNDER the job.

on a big industrial machine suitable for thick materials, there is another set of teeth on the "foot" of the machine, that pulls along the top of the job also... otherwise the bottom piece of material gets stretched and the top piece doesn't, so the job ends up uneven...

make sense?

 

Hi staleg. I have worked in a leather craft factory and have also done some of my own interiors. The most common sewing machines used in Norway is either single upper foot
or twin upper foot.The twin type helps the transportation of
the leather trough the machine and evens out the strech some more. Its easy to spot the difference. Just look at the upper foot.

You can use either type however. The twin type is better for sewing "kjeder" around the edges. But you can buy a special foot for a single type also.
Its not that difficult to learn to sew, just a lot of practice to get everything straight and even.
To check the machine to see if it works properly. Just plug it in and try to sew on a piece of paper. The seem should be perfect on both sides of the paper. Try some stiff cardboard to to see if it handles thicker material also. They are expencive to fix, so look for another if its worn out.
-Thomas

 

OK. Thats what I thought.

I have a very old Singer sewingmachine from around year 1900. Got it after my grandfather who bought it secondhand early in the thirties.
It is driven by the overators feet. It actually has that kind of funcktion as you describe. Unfortunatly it is difficult to get it correct. It also needs a lot of practice to keep the speed steady at the same time as guiding the material.

But I've done some leather sewing earlier and like working with that material. With a god sewing machine, a couple of upholstery books, and some practicing I think I'm able to do the upholstery on my hotrod project.

 

I bought a Sailrite sewing machine to do the upholstery in my '50 plymouth. Saw it advertised in the back of Rod and Custom a couple of years ago. Haven't done the car yet, but did a new vinyl seat cover for my '65 honda benly and it worked well. The throttle is a bit touchy, it's hard to go really slow. These machines have the walking foot to feed the fabric from both the top and bottom. They will sew leather, or many layers of heavy fabric.


Sailrite sewing machines

 

Her's a picture of the foot.
Does it look like the one who helps feeding the material?

And thanks for all answers so far!

 

That is an ordinary single foot machine.
You can do a great upholstry job with that one as well if you practice. I have used a similar PFAFF type for several years with no problems.
I have some special equipment for it though, such as a wheel-foot, keder-foot etc.

 

That single foot will work, but a walking foot is a lot easier to use. With a walking foot, one of the top feet is always holding the material for you- kinda like when someone is walking on a treadmill, one foot is always in contact with the tread. When you're sewing multiple layers of material it comes in very handy. If you want to put welting in your seats-the cording that goes around inserts and the edge of the seat, you'll also need a welt foot. This has a round groove in it that guides the welt through the machine. If you get these different feet and the table with the machine head, then $300 doesn't sound too bad. Hope this helps!