When it rains, it pours.
That’s always what my Mum used to say. Meaning, if something goes wrong, everything seems to go wrong at the same time.
So for those of you following the story so far, the last two weeks I was out of action. Well, from bootmaking that is.
The tension spring on my bobbin casing somehow broke, and I’d placed an order with my sewing machine manufacturer for a new one.
Crazy that a 10mm spring can essentially render a 40kg machine useless. That gives you an idea of how finely tuned sewing machines are.
Beautiful actually. But that admiration will have to wait for another day.
Matters taken into my own hands.
It was taking a while for my manufacturer to send me the spare spring, so I was getting a bit frustrated. And as anyone else would do in this situation, I started doing research to see if I could source the spring elsewhere.
After all, my 810 series machine is arguably the most common make of post bed used for footwear, with identical copies made by different brands and shipped off to all four corners of the world.
In the end though, I couldn’t find a bobbin casing spring. However, I found out that I could very easily order an entire rotator hook with bobbin casing, for around USD $10 or so.
And that bobbin casing included the tension spring I needed.
The illusion of choice strikes again.
You see, all of these 810 series machines have not only the same design, but also more or less the same components. These components are not made by each of the sewing machine manufacturers, but by the next level down in the supply chain – component manufacturers.
So I located the most common rotator hook manufacturer and ordered my part directly from them.
Things were looking up.
Within a few days, my rotator hook and bobbin casing had arrived. I have no idea why the sewing machine manufacturer wasn’t able to deliver promptly, but the component manufacturer could.
But that question will have to be thought about another day.
Now that I had the new bobbin casing with spring, I decided to replace my existing bobbin casing entirely. This would save me from removing the tension spring from the new bobbin casing and installing it on my existing bobbin casing.
The accompanying rotator hook I would keep as a spare. Because you know, shit happens.
A lot of faffing around eliminated.
I get my sewing machine serviced annually, and since it was almost one year since the last service, I decided to give my technician a call.
The idea was he could tick off my annual service, check the machine timing and whilst he was at it, install the new bobbin casing.
Now this fella, he is a real godsend. Not very talkative, relatively young (by footwear industry standards) and charges a reasonable price to come to my home to service my machines.
When I first met him a year ago, I wasn’t sure what sort of character he was. He just sat down and started working on my machine. But once I started asking him questions, it was like I’d turned the tap on.
You know the type, their passion about their craft (in his case, sewing machines) just starts pouring out once you break the seal.
I learnt so much in those three hours he was servicing my machine. It was absolutely incredible. He didn’t hold back information, actively taught me about how things worked and walked me through what he was doing.
This time, the student was ready for the master.
So when he came around again last week, I was certainly looking forward to digging his brain. I’d even prepared a word doc, so I could jot all this knowledge down as he was working.
That knowledge alone was worth so much more than him simply servicing my machine.
My technician arrived late Friday afternoon and stayed for his normal three hours or so. He not only serviced my machine, but also checked the timing, installed the new bobbin casing (with the spring!), and most importantly showed me everything he was doing.
I learnt how to take the post apart, where to adjust the feed dog and post positions from underneath the sewing machine. Which bolts to turn, how to turn them.
Identifying which gears could be fiddled with, and which not. So much knowledge pouring out so fast, it was legitimately hurting my brain trying to catch it all.
Sewing machines aren’t all created equally.
As a former engineer in a past, past life, and a curious nerd in my current life, I’m interested in how things work.
Now particularly with my sewing machine, my philosophy was that the more I could learn about it, the more I could prepare myself to do repairs when my technician isn’t available.
But that was the future. The current status was that he seemed quite disappointed in me because I hadn’t cleaned my oil tray.
A full year’s worth of oil from my machine was pooled there, mixed with stray thread, fluff and god-knows what else.
The shame.
4 legs good, 2 legs bad?
I wanted to know why the same type of sewing machine (i.e. with same functionality) could be priced so differently from various manufacturers (or brands).
Usually the cheaper ones are Chinese branded and the more expensive ones are European branded.
Don’t get me wrong either, this definitely isn’t a knock on the origin of manufacture. Country of origin doesn’t necessarily indicate quality.
Anyway, I asked my technician whether he thought similar European branded machines were worth 10x the price of my Chinese branded machine.
He thought about it for a good 30 seconds and then replied, ‘it depends’. Based on his experience, he explained, it simply depended on what they were being used for, and how complex the machine was.
The expensive machines he said, have far more control over consistency, as well as a host of small adjustments that can be made at the press of a button.
On a cheaper machine, these small adjustments can also be dialed in, but need to be done manually. Meaning, a lot of tinkering in order to eyeball out the tiny changes required to adjust a particular sewing setting.
And that’s when he explained what he thought was the biggest difference of all.
It wasn’t about features. It was about the physical build quality.
4 legs good, 2 legs better.
In his experience, the cheaper machines were made from softer quality steel. Meaning, screws could shear, threads could strip and shafts could bend under use or when being adjusted.
Watching him closely whilst he was servicing my machine, I suddenly understood this problem.
He was always using a hammer to gently knock screws when untightening them, tapping other parts into place and often inserting screwdrivers into small corners to leverage a joint into alignment.
So for the same machine with the same functionality, the difference in price was related to the quality of parts.
How well they fit together meant less vibration, less play in movement and overall smoother running for longer periods of time. Not to mention longevity of the parts.
But of course, he said, with an expensive (and in theory, higher quality machine) if a part needed to be replaced, then it would cost significantly more than the same part from a cheaper machine.
4 legs or 2, I’m sure they’re still made in the same factory.
I’d bet that European branded machines are still predominantly using Chinese manufacturers for their component supply chain.
My guess is that they simply insist upon a certain quality for their parts.
Whereas, Chinese branded machines likely prioritize volume and pricing over build quality, and so their component supply chain is instructed to manufacture accordingly.
Two very different perspectives on product indeed.
All’s well that doesn’t end well.
Two days later, on Sunday, I was using my sewing machine again. After the service, it already sounded smoother and I could feel that everything was just much more.. well, tight.
There’s no other way to describe it. If you’ve used an industrial sewing machine before, you’ll know exactly the feeling I’m talking about.
With the tune-up and new bobbin casing, it seemed things were humming along nicely again.
I grabbed the handwheel after finishing a stitch line, turned it to raise the needle, and the handwheel came off the drive shaft.
Right.
At first, I wasn’t too concerned, it had happened a few times before when I’d jammed the machine well good.
A jammed handwheel can’t turn, and using too much force to to try and turn it eventually makes the handwheel come off the shaft. Because, inside the handwheel, there are screws that press down onto the drive shaft to lock it in place.
Forcing the handwheel to turn, overcomes the pressure of those screws pressing against the drive shaft, and hey presto, off comes the handwheel.
This time it was different.
As much as I tried, I couldn’t retighten the handwheel screws onto the driveshaft.
Eventually, I decided to remove the now freely spinning handwheel to have a look. When I took the screws out, I could see there were metal shards jammed in-between the screw thread.
Not good, not good at all.
After messaging my machine technician, he let me know what I suspected. The threads inside the handwheel screw holes had been stripped.
And these threads were now sitting in-between the threads on the screws.
Just as he had said two days earlier, the physical build quality of the machines were the difference.
The (suspected) softer metal of my machine meant that as I’d been trying to tighten the screws in the handwheel, they’d stripped the shit out of the corresponding thread in the shaft.
I wish it was a quick fix. Of course, it wasnt.
Within an hour or so, my technician sent me a spare handwheel that he had lying around.
It didn’t fit. Of course.
So with a sigh, I realised that my machine was out of action. Again.
Because when it rains, it pours.
Luckily I still have plenty going on that doesn’t involve physically making boots. This is what I’ll be working on this week, and likely the next.
I placed the order for a new handwheel from my manufacturer this morning, and as they still hadn’t sent me the bobbin casing spring yet, I guess they’ll put them all together in a single package.
I have no idea how long this will take, it’s difficult to get a commitment on timing from them.
Nonetheless, this whole situation made me understand why all the commercial bootmakers have multiple sets of machines. It’s needed not just for scale of business, but also redundancy.
I’d guessed this already from watching videos of boot manufacturers, but only when it actually happens to you, does it really hit home.
The silver lining is that it’s now something I need to think about for the future. Planning for machine downtime.
As Outstation is growing, I can’t afford to be put out of action for a month or more waiting for spare parts.
In the meantime though, I have orders coming in and customers visiting from interstate. I need to be back up and running asap.
