Sewing Machine for Canvas Work

[offline2004]

First and Foremost - I know nothing about sewing!!! I am taking Don Casey''s advise and am going to try to repair my sail cover on my own before shelling out the cash.

1st - does anyone have any recommendations on a good machine for canvas work ( I will NEVER do work on sails). Any idea on price range I should expect to pay?

2nd - looking for recommendations on sites/locations to find canvas to do the work.

Many of the old posts on this topic seem to be very generic.

Thanks

[KenD]

As don Casey would say in his book look for a used machine like a old (pre70''s)white or singer, or kenmore The old ones were made with metal gears and such and will hold up to the task of canvas if you can find one it will be about twenty dollars or so check pawn shops and independant sewing outlets good luck

[RichH]

Sail and canvas repair is actually quite easy, many times you dont even need a sewing machine ... as, if you''re clever and neat you can simply ''glue'' the seams together, using ''Slow Cure'' 3M 5200, etc. adhesives ... that will be a seam that will NEVER be able to be taken apart or adjusted if you make a mistake. Simply apply light films of glue over ''masked'' seams, press the fabric faces together and wait a few hours, peel off the masking tape - done. Just dont put in too much glue so that it squeezes out when pressing the seams together - practice first.

For sail makers supplies try: www.sailrite.com

For a sewing machine many times you can ''do it'' if its an older homemakers machine that has all of its parts made for ''metal'' .... simply saturate the sewing thread with a teflon lubricant. The modern homemakers plastic machnes will simply fall apart. The only ''real'' trick is to match the proper needle with the proper sized thread for best results and choose a machine with a BIG balance wheel.

If you do your own sail construction and repair you will eventuallly save a minor fortune and you will gain a much much better understanding of how sails actually work, whats needed to ''shape'' them when sailing, etc.

hope this helps.

[rcarr]

For supplies, try lowelldistributing.com. It is a sister company of sail-rite. Some items they sell only in bulk, but they sell material by the yard cheaper than sail-rite

[admin]

For using a home machine to do sail and canvas work, go to http://yachtvalhalla.net/downloads/download.htm
and download the article ''Repair your own sails'' by Jim Grant of Sailrite. The article was published about 20 years ago but is still good info.

Terry

[canopus22]

I went on Ebay and got lucky with a Paff Supermatic. It's Swiss, it's all metal, built like a tank, 50 years old and will sew through several layers of leather and canvass. All this for $60