The Upholstery Forum

I am a newby with no experiance in sewing but I am wanting to get started doing automotive upholstery mostly for my own projects and i need to get a machine. I have seen the review that The Lucky Needle did on the Fabricator and I like that machine but I have found a Juki DNU 241 that I am going to look at but I would like some help deciding on buying new or use. I have the budget for a new Fabricator but if for some reason upholstery isn't my cup of tea and I nail out I have less money tied up.

Thoughts please?

@Paul Williams ,

Weigh out the total cost, you can always sell that Juki pretty easily the Fabricator you may not get the same $ back trying to sell. Watching the videos you cannot say that Fabricator is nothing but good.

One of my concerns with the used is the clutch motor as well as the machine itself, the lady that has it said she bought it used 20 years ago.

@Paul Williams

Here we discussed them:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=376

How much is Juki? If price is right - you can fit servo motor for $100 or so and go to town. I think if you go to the lady with piece of lather/vinyl and thread you want to use (#92) - she should show you how it sews. Ask to show forward, reverse and ask to go full speed through 3-4 layers. Ask to change stitch size. It all should take no more than 15 minutes.

If price is right and machine works - you already ahead of brand new machine you will have to setup yourself. And with new machine - you pretty much loose 30%+ right away on resale. Old machines depending on how much you pay - you can make money on. She may have some accessories which you will need: Different foot sets, needles, bobbins. All this cost money.

@IvanD
This is great advise. I wish @John had started this forum before I bought my machine and I had read all the post about buying machines.

Ok I will start by saying the sailrite machines have an excellent resale value and don’t come up for sale very often so they sell quickly. Starting out I will say a servo motor is the only way to go!

@Jayscanvas
I have nothing to say about Sailrite, but everything else you said applies to any other brand(no name clones is different story I guess). I will still say that if you buy $1300 machine + $100 in shipping + some accessories - you will not get this money back. No way. I wouldn't pay more than $1000 for this machine used. Realistically it's going to be 700-900 machine maybe. PFAFF 1245 which I got for $900 is on expensive side but is excellent machine in decent shape. I can see myself selling it for 700-800 quickly. And maybe getting full $900 since I can demo it and have some extras. And this is $2500 machine when new.

So if you buy used setup to sew - you pretty much going to resell it at the same price. Popular well-known machines stay at the same price doesn't matter if they 20 or 40 years old.

I would probably try to save the money and get the Juki DNU 241H and put a servo motor on it. They are very similar machines. I would also try to negotiate a lower price if you can. The worst thing is they say no and you still pay 550.

Ok, I got the DNU 241H for $500.00 now I need to know what the best deal is for a servo motor to retrofit it with?

I use the sailrite servo motor on my juki 563 and am very happy with it. You can get a cheaper consew servo motor for around $100 dollars the big difference is the cheap consew servo motor does not have a digital speed control it’s just a dial. I would find a local sewing machine guy to tune it up and check the timing. Learning on a machine that does not sew properly will make learning way harder.

I have cheap servo motor 550W on my machine and with 45mm pulley it works OK. I can go really slow if need to . The only problem - I still can't control needle as much as I want.

Currently I'm building 2nd table(since I have 2 machines now) with straight top, etc. I will be using this motor:
https://store.keysew.com/sp-1100-npfl

It is not cheap. But it starts with 100rpm, not 300rpm as cheaper ones. And it's got needle positioner with up/down setting using push button. I really can't wait to see how it works..

Needle position it great option now that I started using one I will always get one in the future

This is the one I upgraded my clutch motor for my juki dnu 1541s. It has performed very well without any issues. Also comes with a neeedle position sensor. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eagle-EA-550-B ... 5d7e571a4c

What is a needle position sensor?

Needle position is when your servo motor knows the position of your needle and every time you stop the needle always stops down in your material so you don’t lose your position.

That sounds very handy

Is it possible to post a picture where the sensor mounts?

Just wanted to share some pictures of the machine after cleanup and painting the stand and my first French seam after getting the machine set up. I had to play with the tension a fair amount to get it working, thanks John for all of your videos that you take time to share with us without those I would have been lost.

@Paul Williams ,

Now does that not make you feel good

Yep, sure does, I would love to be able to sew at a lower speed that thing is very sensative.