My pop was a sewing machine mechanic and my first gig was digitizing parts catalogs. Being a mechanic having serviced many machines, he knew which competing brands have the same internal parts for key functions. Sewing machines are magical things and Singer who had the novel idea of a better up and down and Wilson had the clever idea of the rotary bobbin. Before that a shuttle would be used, it flew laterally and could produce a consistent mechanical stitch. The mechanics on these early machines is insane... it was a great way for me to get into computing.
Also part reuse happens all over... Lamborghini’s have used Mazda headlamps.
There used to be this place in Denver, Frank's sewing machine repair or something, maybe not frank. When I was coming up as a mechanical engineer and before we had the resources we have today this was the best machine shop in town. They could make anything, quickly.
Props to your pop. His skills were probably awesome.
Also agreed on the parts reuse. I design medical devices and I know of heart pumps that have Mercedes solenoids in them, I just designed a surgical robot that I put a ford part in. One of those little clip nuts. It was perfect for what I needed.
I have a Bernina sewing machine from 1965. Found the instructions scanned on the net, think it was their own homepage.
Machine works just fine with original parts. Has seen heavy usage at a school until 20 years ago when they changed to modern machines and sold out the old ones. Best buy ever :-)
In art school I owned an industrial sewing machine. It could sew through virtually anything and was great for repairs and modifications of heavy garments and bags. It had a "walking foot" that moved the needle in sync with the feed mechanism on the bottom which let it pull through almost endless layers without issue. I think the most it took before choking was about 15 layers of denim. You could lift the foot with a knee-operated lever too which made moving the material while you worked effortless. Of all the crap I've sold over the years to buy other stuff it's the only one I really regret letting go of.
I manage lol, being circumcised had a much worse impact on my gait for considerable time, oh, and i got my median sized nuts crushed by my leg straps once after deploying my parachute, that sucked
why not? I have a burning passion for aerial sports, i have various sports skydiving licenses and BASE jumped for a while, so i am somewhat experienced in piloting different ram air canopy type wings. I also have a parachute rigging license and I’ve repaired and serviced parachutes for some time now.
Additionally, i also have designed a variety of mods and paraphernalia, including DLC coated closing loop pins - friction has foiled attempts to deploy reserve parachutes in the past, as well as a self-designed, modded slider to be retrofitted onto a model produced by performance designs parachutes.
The reason for the slider mod? The oem one is too small to slow down the deployment sequence, breaking the bones of unsuspecting parachutists. They are far from perfect in many cases and have never been sued for it.
Here’s another scary case in point if you’re interested in going down that rabbit hole. But I’m getting off track, I’m just having fun and I’m aware of the risks I’m taking by pursuing this. You’re risking your life on potentially badly designed gear either way, i just only have myself to blame lol
to be entirely honest, even that is beyond the point. Parachutes are dead simple things, pretty much all constructed from the same ZP ripstop nylon and built the same way.
Sure, there is a whole bunch of subcategories and outliers, but it’s all very mature technology if you aren’t pushing boundaries with things like full sail fabrics intended for paragliding wings, ultra fast and small cross braced speed machines and such. I’m not innovating here, i use the same designs, fabrics and processes, even the same sewing machines.
I also skydive with a commercial reserve parachute and a tertiary belly mounted emergency rig for good measure. The secondary reserve is rigged into a so called "automatic activation device" [1]. The chances of murking myself due to negligence, complacency or by pushing my luck with disciplines like relative work (flying formations) or free flying (acro) are wayyy higher than a fatal accident because one of three parachutes malfunctioned. Skydiving is a deadly sport, it says so on the waiver you have to sign, and if i don’t feel comfortable with the inherent risks, I’ll gift my gear to a newbie and call it quits.
[1] AAD - device monitoring velocity and altitude, fires a cutting charge, severing the reserve closing loop if still in free fall at set altitude. I use this one
I watched Tim Hunkin explain sewing machines when I was about 8 and have never lost my fascination with them (or mechanical engineering) since then.
https://youtu.be/8lwI4TSKM3Y
He’s so great. Secret Life of Machines is one of the greatest television programs to ever exist in terms of explaining household technology in simple terms. Highly recommend it to anyone with kids. I plan to check out his arcade the next time I’m in London.
A visit to one of his arcades would be almost like a pilgrimage for me. I'd have to make it the centerpiece of a trip to London, if I ever get to go. His breadth and volume of work amazes me.
Just a friendly recco for the Technology Connections YouTube channel. Really liked his exploration of the Coffee Machine and other vids. Not affiliated in any way.
I showed that episode to my mother (who is a fairly avid seamstress) and she commented that he really needed to clean his fingernails. In the afterword he's added to his modern uploads of those episodes (which was fabulous of him to take on) he mentions that he received many letters telling him the same back when it originally aired.
Like he says, the sewing machine was the first machine that entered the home. It was at the forefront of a changing world. It probably changed his viewership in new and unexpected ways too!
The epiphany for me was realizing that there are two separate sources of thread. The bobbins are out of sight so I was puzzled for a long while as to how the magic works.
Aahhh, didn’t watch the video, but that makes sense. I’ve always felt like sewing machines were some sort of dark evil magic that couldn’t possibly work.
"In 1814, Joseph Madersperger was granted a patent in Vienna. It took him a decade to build the machine, but he never commercialized it. He spent the rest of his life trying to perfect the design."
great explanation. one wonders how many attempts were made at mechanizing the exact manual sequence of passing the whole needle through, rotating, and passing it back up. because for everyone, that was sewing. it’s understated but worth the greatest emphasis: when trying to improve on a process or mechanize/automate, how it’s currently done may not be your best guide. if anything, it may be the worst. concerning that, gordon glegg had this to say in his book, the design of design[0]:
If you are concerned in making the production of some article quicker, better or cheaper, you will naturally study how it is being done at the moment. It may seem paradoxical but the man least likely to help you is the operator in charge of the machine. The more 'down-to-earth' and 'practical' he considers himself the more 'unpractical' and 'up-in-the-air' he is likely to be from your point of view. He is too near the machine to know why it works. He only knows how it works. He will have learnt what handwheels to turn or what controls to adjust to keep the line running efficiently, and will be able to use that knowledge most skilfully and responsibly.
Lockstitch is commonly used in leather work, even when done by hand. Given the simplicity of the tools involved and how long humans have been at leatherwork for, I'd be willing to bet lockstitch already existed when the sewing machine was invented.
Sewing machines are one of those things where I learn how they work then promptly forget and they go back to feeling like magic.
I think this video has really made it stick. It’s more like a knitting machine than something that does “sewing” like how I was taught by hand. The thread never goes through to complete any knots. It’s just tangles.
I also finally understand how the bobbin inside the base can be so small: it supplies much less thread to the tangle.
Actually most modern sewing machines use the same amount of thread from the bobbin and from the spool on top. The reason the bobbin is usually so small is that the thread from the top makes a loop and passes it around the bobbin, which must be small enough to fit through the loop.
The "knitting" revelation is what made it stick for me as well, long ago. I don't remember the name of the person who took the the time to explain it to me, but he did so with kelp.
What'll really get your noodle going is looking up how a square hay bailer knotter works. My grandpa joked that whoever engineered it was a mad insane guy.
I picked up sewing recently to put on the scout badges for my kids. After doing a couple by hand the machine is a real treat to work with! It’s also quite fun, highly recommended if you’re into making things.
I never recall sewing my own patches (thanks mom!) but I like sewing today, mostly to repair clothing, which gives me an absurd amount of satisfaction. It occurs to me that it should have been one of the very first merit badges a scout earned: sew ur own patches.
I have always had a respect for these machines. Interestingly enough, Brother (the printer company) started out as a sewing machine company, and somehow it makes sense to me.
Years ago I bought an old Singer sewing machine on Ebay. Those are still an amazing, heavy duty, machine. You can stitch thick belt leather with those.
My mom was quite the seamstress back in the day. Clothes, drapes, slipcovers, whatevers. She had a Pfaff circa 1960. That thing was a tank and it stored in its own furniture cabinet when not in use.
There is an excellent book that covers the topic: The Fabric of Civilization, by Virginia Postrel. The part most amazing to me was the pyramid effect of fabric production in the days before mechanization - 20 spinners per weaver producing thread, 80,000 spinners near Manchester alone, thousands of weavers turning thread into fabric, etc., and as
the spinning jenny and later the power loom came along, employment and economic patterns changed drastically, giving us the Luddites and similar movements.
One wonders what programming will look like after 10 or 20 years of AI.
As far as I know, the basic operating principles behind power looms are quite similar to those of traditional manual looms. There is also far more wider range of automation and tech available
The most remarkable aspect of sewing machines to me are their durability. Those things last forever. No annual release hype cycles. No purposeful obscurity. The good ones are a “buy it once” investment.
In a former life I repaired sewing machines. Singer built a reputation for durability, and their old machines still perform much as you describe. Modern Singers, however, are bottom-of-the-market plastic chunks of crap, their reputation running off the fumes of a bygone century. Janome and Brother machines are pretty OK, a decent balance of lower cost with reasonable durability (some plastic wear parts meant to be replaced over time).
Bernina mechanical parts are incredibly solid but their electronics are as vulnerable to failure as everything else nowadays.
My mother used to have an old hand-cranked Singer with mother-of-pearl inlay. Not as fancy as the really old ones, but still a very nice machine! As a boy I was fascinated by it, and proud to be able to thread it and use it! It always felt as if there was a slight element of danger (needle thru finger) to using it!
The drummer in my band is a sewing machine repair tech. His wife owns a largish quilt shop and they sell Bernina.
We've been practicing at the shop, and I keep wondering if I should pick up some electronics repair from him- he seems like he does okay with the mechanical stuff but anything electronic is generally out-of-scope for him. In general, it looks like interesting work and I was hoping to get him to teach me, though fortunately the music and audio work has been paying the bills this year.
I'm starting to get okay at fixing some kinds of circuits (analog electronics for music), but fortunately I haven't had to dig into that stuff. My assumption would be that it's much cheaper to replace whole boards as is the case with most consumer electronics. But I haven't looked into it, and so I am a bit curious.
With last few decades of Bernina machines in particular, techs are very much incentivized to replace failing boards wholesale. Older machines from the 70s and 80s don’t have the compact machine-built boards; in these you can replace blown capacitors, ect and that’s great. It’s one of the reasons you still have machines in operation 50 years on.
The Asian-built boards are usually the point of failure in the new machines (a distant second are sensors, but those also have smaller, simpler boards in em). A few years back Bernina actually lost the ability to claim they were Swiss-manufactured because the electronics were being made in Maylasia (if memory serves, this was back in 2017, I think).
> Modern Singers, however, are bottom-of-the-market plastic chunks of crap, their reputation running off the fumes of a bygone century.
This is very true. The one exception that comes to mind is the 44S, which is notable for being a solid piece of equipment, widely available for a reasonable price, and without electronics. I suspect it's an old design in a new case.
Not the person you're asking, but I've got a little time on one. If you aren't pushing it and don't need a zigzag stitch and/or walking foot, you'll likely find you'll be as happy with an old cast-iron Singer. If you don't already have one, pick up a 15 -90 or 15-91 or one of the numerous clones (which in my limited experience with them are also decent).
I ran an old Singer 127 through a pile of fabric a Sailrite was struggling with. The old domestic Singers aren't industrial, but if you can't do it once, slowly on a 15, it's even odds whether it can be done at all[0].
The 15 (or 66) is a much, much more refined machine. Parts (bobbins, notably) are readily available, and if you find you do need more, you can sell it for what you paid for it. The Sailrite, IME is a clunky, value engineered version of what you really need when you hit a problem an old Singer can't solve. Once you get to that point, you'll know what you need and how a machine should run.
If you've already hit this point, I'd suggest looking for an old industrial machine on your local Craigslist or Facebook marketplace equivalent. The Sailrite is likely to piss you off with how crudely it runs and handles. I'm told by my upholsterer colleague that an import servo motor is a huge upgrade from a clutch motor. Especially if you're coming from a domestic machine with a variable speed control. On the rare occasion that I've used a machine with a clutch motor, it's a grab hold and hang on for the ride kind of experience.
[0] I'm explicitly not including things that require a serger, blind-hemmer, cylinder bed or other specialized garment/leather machines. The Sailrite won't do those either.
To add another anecdote to this thread, a few years ago, I picked up an old Consew 226R compound walking foot machine to do canvas work for a boat. That machine was a beast once I tuned it. Fast, powerful, smooth, quiet, and with a servo motor, had awesome slow and high speeds, would punch through anything. Its only real downside was the size, and it only did straight stitches. For canvas work, that was everything I needed.
I later picked up a Sailrite LSZ to do some zigzag work on sails. Compared to the Consew, the sailrite feels really clunky, even with the Sailrite servo motor upgrade. It's relatively rough and noisy compared to the Consew, and has less power. Main upsides are the size, and the zigzag stitch for sail work where you need some stretch.
I've ultimately kept the Sailrite because it's still pretty solid, and can be stored on the boat where I need it the most. If I was doing upholstery or canvas work in a permanent shop, I would've kept the Consew, hands down, it was a much more capable and pleasant machine.
The walking foot feature is very useful for heavy materials. I tried sewing light-weight materials on both of these machines and it was awful (bunching, tearing on the foot, can't use really fine needles, etc).
I'm particularly interested in zigzag capability because I want to make some sails for my boat. Are there any older machines you can recommend for this? In general I much prefer older machines--I have a lathe from the 1930s and a drill press from the 1960s, for example.
Oof. I cannot. My interest in sewing is at the garment to backpacking equipment scale. Everything I know about sewing sail fabrics comes from the crossover to the ultralight backpacking world.
I know I was pretty down on the Sailrite, but if you're doing diy sail sewing, it's probably a pretty good compromise for the job.
Background for non-sewers: all fabric stretches, but for most things on a human scale, you can ignore it when you're sewing. When you get into sail-sized products, you'll end up with puckering if your seams can't stretch with the fabric. A zigzag seam will stretch with the fabric. A straight stitched seam will not.
Further background: AIUI industrial machines are a lot more job and/or fabric-specific than domestic machines. And you also get into needles and bobbins that you can't pick up at Joann.
Your sibling commenter is likely more knowledgeable than I am. I was helping a friend doing some cushions for her boat. The Sailrite was struggling with the Sunbrella-type canvas. For sailcloth (on that size boat?) it probably would've been fine.
I have a wide selection of computers in my home. 3DPrinters, CNC, Microcontrollers, rpis, desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, TVs, etc.
The one computer that “just works” and stays out of the way the most? My wife’s embroidery machine. When she wants it off, it’s off. When she wants to do classic sewing, it works like normal. It has some buttons to do traditionally mechanical operations automatically. But it also has those mechanical options as well. (Raising the foot, for example)
And like you said: it has never once asked her to subscribe.
It’s my favorite computer in the house. :) (and the most expensive)
My family's still in possession of an old foot-powered Singer from the 1800s. The belt rotted away during my childhood, but the mechanism itself barely squeaks! It probably runs smoother than my car...
Also part reuse happens all over... Lamborghini’s have used Mazda headlamps.