BEAMNOVA Leather Cobbler Sewing Machine Black Shoe Repair Tool Equipment Heavy Duty Industrial Hand with Needles Leather Craft Kit

I don't often review products, but this one deserves does deserve to be mentioned. After reading reviews and complaints, I figured it will either work or it won't, and it works WAY better than I expected!Setup was easy, and yea the stand seems flimsy looking at it, and there is a lot of oil everywhere, and there are no instructions, but if you have an understanding of how old style sewing machines work to make stitches, you'll have this up and running right away. By the 3rd attempt at sewing with the polyester thread (and adjusting tension), this machine put down the prettiest set of stitches through 4 layers of leather that I think I have ever made!I am super impressed, and am looking forward to the work I can do with this machine! I too thought I would pitch the stand, but after working with it, I am thinking I will balance it better and maybe shorten it slightly because it's nearly the perfect height for working standing up at the kitchen table :)As others have said: WATCH THE VIDEO first - it IS the instruction manual.

Well you will need to read/watch a lot of you tube on this machine, all in all it is good, BUT YOU WILL NEED TO UNDERSTAND IT FULLY. A lot of cleaning and some filing of the machine, very crude an rough, But it will work. Since I want to work with leather,I still have more to learn. This is for the people who do not know much about leather. Learn leather. But it will work if you will learn it/understand it, and take the TIME, you will need time, and don't give up. Harrison Hightower (you tube ) is probably the best teacher on this machine. He will take you from box to tear a apart and back, he has 22 videos on it. use a table and not the stand that comes with it. Tandy leather has a picture of all the leather an thickness an weight, that has helped me a lot. I have not tried to sew anything real yet, I want it to do what I want, I have seen the video's of it working that way. I WILL WIN (;I could talk for an hour but ya need to watch the video's first.

This comes with NO instructions on assembly. Still six months after getting this it is still not working… It will not pick up thread from bobbin.

I've hand stitched leather for years, usually with linen thread, an awl, and two needles, but I have also declined to make quite a few products due to the time and effort that hand stitching requires. For saddles, tight areas, special work, and a traditional look, hand stitching can be the answer, but long belt edges, apparel, and several other items can do very well with machine stitching. I long planned to set up my old treadle sewing machine, but never have found a good place to put it. To get some kind of solution, at long last, I looked online for a compact sewing machine that would make a good stitch, not a chain stitch. I soon found this Chinese design for cobblers. Next, of course, I had to find out if people thought that it was good. On YouTube, I watched a presenter punch easily through two layers of very thick leather, and several people said that it was worth purchasing. Thus, I went ahead and got the black model of the BEAMNOVA Leather Cobbler Sewing Machine.The machine isn't entirely small and light in weight, but it is quite good in that regard. It is quite easy to move around, push out of the way, or pack up to go places, which my treadle machine won't do. Not needing electricity is a great advantage in many circumstances, and it sets up almost anywhere in a minute or two. It can be run fast, spacing very well and easily making straight lines, or it can be turned slowly with the most deliberate placement of every stitch. It easily penetrates thick leather, and it works smoothly with other materials both fine and coarse. I haven't yet tried it with a thin needle and delicate fabrics, but that's on the list. It has a long, narrow bed, which is very handy for maneuvering around oddly shaped work pieces and for placing the needle plate deep inside of hollow pieces, such as shoes, archery quivers, arm bands, and the like.Some people complain about its light, quite loose-jointed tripod, insisting that this part needs to be immediately replaced, but I disagree. It will easily tip if one mounts the machine as some videos show, for reasons I can't fathom, with a single leg under the body. This offers almost no resistance to a tip. On the contrary, tripod mounting becomes comfortably stable if one rotates the pleasantly strong mounting bracket to put two legs under the body and centers the weight of the machine between the two legs. The factory provided slots do permit this positioning. Spread the legs wide, and, even though the legs are a bit loose, the machine will sit nicely for stable use, or so I have found to be true. Since lifting the machine can allow legs to fall off, I lift any two legs at one time, leaving the third leg on the floor, and rotate the machine to move it a foot or two in whatever direction, but I take off the legs (not the bracket) to move the machine any large distance, and then just slip the legs on again. Using the factory tripod in a way that gives good support and balance, as described, keeps everything simple, compact, lighter in weight, easy to set up and break down, easy to transport, and easy to use in small spaces.I wanted try out the thick threads that I have used for hand stitching, but I quickly found that a size 110/18 needle cannot hold the 7-strand linen thread that I often use, nor can that thread fit through the bobbin holes. Then, naively, I tried loading up Tandy waxed hand stitching thread (about .5mm diameter, near T-240 in size). I was able to coerce it through the needle by shaving the end thinly, and it easily routed through the bobbin holes. After trying some stitches with that, things bound up and the thread broke, in numerous tries. That led me to look up thread thicknesses that can be used with particular needle sizes, as well as to see how thick a needle I might be able to find in the "universal" type (known as Groz-Beckert 130/705, HAx1, or 15x1), which this machine uses. I also learned that one never uses waxed thread in a sewing machine (since it gums things up), nor thread so thick in a size 18 needle. I wiped down the thread route with a paper towel lightly sprayed with WD-40, cleaned all holes involved, and loaded some T-70 thread instead. Everything again worked fine. I'll continue to experiment with needles and thread thicknesses, but it is great to have a sturdy, compact, powerful, manually driven, heavy duty sewing machine that is ready to go in almost no time at all, and that I don't need to handle with kid gloves.

It works for what it's designed for. Unfortunately when it arrived, the extra bobbin holder was missing the tension screw and the screw on the original bobbin holder was stripped. Did I get someone elses return???? Not easy to sew as is!

Have to admit, for $119 just how big or good would this cobbler hand crank machine be? Arrived today, unpacked....WATCH VIDEO FIRST on Amazon included on description.....as we wasted a lot of time trying to figure out "stuff"......then we put on dining table......is PERFECT size.....it comes pre-wound nylon thread in bobbie and another piece that if you tye the thread spool to, you can just pull it through where every place is that needs to have thread go! within 15 minutes was able to repair 1 pair of boots! the boots always have thread that wears out way before the boots fall apart......guess because my boots get worn from muddy lots, washing horses, and actually everyday wear! it has a rotating foot feed that you simply turn as you sew!!! ITS BEST THING I THINK I HAVE EVER FOUND ON AMAZON!!!!! It is heavy enough to be steady on the 3 legs but you can also always mount to a permanent fixture but I want to be able to use and put away! in beginning hubby held solid while I sewed the boots as was trying to figure out how to rotate the foot that self feeds with every crank and that is not hard either! I think this is much better to hand crank rather than electric motor as you have time to turn direction of feeder so you can go all way around boot or item without removing off long arm!!!!!!