Learning to sew

It depends on what you want to have a go at and what your happy for the professionals to do ( read pay for ) What I save I spend on time off for sailing. I use a very old singer 99k . It does 4 layers of sunbrella with no problems. It was my mothers. You need an early model singer,pre 60s I think as they have steel gears ,newer ones have plastic gears. I got a roll of da bond v92 ( get v68 as it's a bit smaller and easier to work with) . I wouldn't use it for sail work. Hunt around ,you should get one for less than $100 ,they are not collectors items as some would have you believe. Pull it apart ,clean ,oil , adjust. Get size 18 or 20 needles ( do a net search lots of information on these.)
Start simple , maybe a nice table cloth for the boat . I recovered the bimimi ,Sail covers and dodger next.

Just finished making weather cloths and various other items for my boat. I used my old Singer 201 that i found down at the dump.
Although I fumbled my way through the jobs, and made items from the Weather Max material that look like the items that I required, the stitching is rather poor and untidy,, and the whole exercise was punishing for the machine and consumed alot of down time continually untangling ,re-threading and unpicking simply because the machine wasn't to the capacity required.
I even borrowed an industrial sewing machine but found it was worse than my Singer 201 because it was designed to sew clothing at full speed and not heavy duty stuff.






The biggest problem I found is the small domestic machines cannot handle the heavy bonded type thread that your sailmakers use.
I have just bought a Sailrite machine and are awaiting delivery of it

Hi Toph,

I used my wife's Grandmother's old singer to do some upholstery. It worked OK once I worked out how to set it up with bobbin tension and foot tension etc. I taught myself how to do it by reading a few web pages, then just trial and error. I've even managed to do some sail repair, but it won't handle anything too thick.

My tip, in case you are getting a Sailrite kit, is to not use the double-sided sticky tape they recommend to hold the seams in place before sewing. It gums up the needles and causes all sorts of problems.

If you are looking for an industrial sewing machine to use I know that the Men's Shed in Mosman Park have one. It is only $100 to join, so cheaper than any sewing machine - and as a bonus you will get to use all their woodwork and metalwork machinery :-) The only downside is that they are only open during the week and Saturday mornings - not so convenient for wage slaves like me.

If you want to get together and get some pointers about sewing I'm happy to help out a fellow sandgroper. Get in touch.

At the risk of getting seriously off-topic: if you would like to see some truly beautiful sail craftsmanship, look up "Carol Haase" at "Port Townsend Sails" on you-tube. And her sailmakers are gorgeous too!

These heirloom products are for serious cruisers, so hi-tech racers should look away now. And as for price, I suspect that "if you have to ask .. .. .. .. ".

My co-owner has made heaps of Sunbrella stuff for us. Hatch covers, window covers, wheel covers, cockpit table covers, all sorts of things as well as repairs to boom bag etc. Watches the sailrite videos and has a go. May not be professional standard, but pretty good.

Check out this one Toph.

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/safety-bay/other-appliances/sewing-machine-industrial-singer-20u/1177550716

The industrial machines will sew slow very well which is important for the sort of stuff we are interested in doing. The style and size of the needle must suit the thread and the material.
My Singer 20u is set up between two tables, one is a dining room table and it will happily drag through a rolled up mainsail.
I use different thread sizes for different materials and have separate bobbins with the tension set for each thread. The Singer 20u is made in Japan and China with the Japanese made one supposedly better. The sailrite machine is a rebadged Chinese unit. Not sure who makes them but the cruiserforums had a discussion on them some time ago.

BTW, missus says, if you intend to sew large pieces then you need a free-arm.

The 'industrial machine' is a misnomer. A machine which can saw fast is usu. called 'industrial' for it saves time.
The peccant part is the "walking foot" or free arm.
This type as it's name suggests, steps over the material passed, not trying to drag it like the 'normal' sawing machine. I had a leather business, sawing leather wests, pants, jackets and we used an 'industrial walking foot' machine.
It handled all the heavy duty sawing with aplomb.
Never tried a sail be sawn on it thou, but the idea is the same.
The machines down at the local loft are all so called 'walking foot' machines.

The old Singers are a class on their own as in those days they did not have the walking foot invented yet and all the machines were built like they should have built today, using metals not crap plastic.


Sam and LC beat me to it by minutes but it's the same, nevertheless !

Most sail makers and industrial canvas joints don't usually have free arm machines, they are usually mounted in a flat deck which makes it easer to get large products through the machine. I have never had a need for a free arm, maybe cause I don't make dresses. You definitely need a walking foot and zig zag stitch though, which is what the Sailrite has. The Sailrite is only a portable machine so the throat can be a bit small to get large items through it, but if something is that big I'm better of taking it to a professional who has the room to spread it out.

This sewing caper can be a bit addictive once you start. Apart from those sail repairs and building sails just to try something out there is all those little jobs on the boat. Cushion covers, winch covers and rope bags etc. Trailer winch straps and all manner of stuff about the house and workshop. Ditty bags for all that stuff that did not need a bag previously.

Oh !! So you do have a goose's bridle in your tool kit. So that makes two of you.

Anybody else got a goose's bridle in their tool kit?? No shame in admitting it unless you have the wigwam too. That would make you very suss.