[Bob Carriere]

'Twas -26C early this AM........ was -22C at 10:30 when I lite Lucifer.....

........ twas so cold..... I had to warm up the wooden matches in my hands before I could light them..... then the smoke was so cold it was packing up in the chimney.

Nonetheless, Grant and I set out to finish the modification to an Industrial sewing machine. The machine is a "walking foot" Singer 211G156. It came with a 3500 rpm motor that requires much skill and practice to sew s-l-o-w-l-y that the first time I tries a short piece of canvass it took off the sewing table and embedded itself in the plywood wall covering of the barn.

First move was to change the motor for a 1750 rpm which reduced its velocity to half but still exceeded my abilities..... so we designed a jack shaft which now looks like the pictures attached. First I scored a 1.5 inch pulley for the motor in 15mm shaft size......... belted to a 5 inch pulley twinned to a 2 inch pulley that drives the 3 inch pulley on the sewing head....

We basically researched EBay for ready made speed reducer at $160 US dollars and with several model in mind adapted to what material and pillow blocks we had..... final results is around 350 rpm flat out with lots of torque while slipping the clutch at lower speed. It will be slow and I can speed it up by using larger pulleys on the motor if I ever become proficient at the sewing skills.

I am not new to sewing as I grew up with a grandmother who insisted that I learn how to sew n an old threadle Singer machine. In fact I help my wife sew a pair of PIAZZO pants on Sunday for when she goes to Mexico.

The first pictures are not set up ONLY for viewing in Australia.... we simply inverted the whole table on the workbench for ease of access.

I have not done any actual sewing on it yet as we ran out of time but it worked fine and is as designed.....slow and very manageable.

Next I need to make patterns from worn out CMP seats covers and try our hands at using a heavy weight unbleached white canvass...... then debug and move on to real OD fabric. I do have a set of NOS covers from Dirk but would prefer to keep them as such and use repros for everyday use. I also have to remove the dried up Monsanto clear windows from my NOS side windows and replace the plastic with modern clear vinyl.

Well by the time the afternoon rolled over it was a balmy 55F in the barn.... sad to let the fire die out but happy to go in the house where it is nice and warm.

Cheers

PS... once we finish making frilly skirts, I need to work on the roof.... removing the dings, holes and reskinning the bottom half of the top rear panel and then reproduce the 2B1 box.......