The Upholstery Forum

I have an old Singer 211W155 that I bought used. It sat for 2 years, I finally took the Lucky Needle Courses. Machine has been serviced. I'm redoing a 78 Scout Interior for my neighbor and after weeks of delays of ordering parts etc., I finally take apart a visor, use 1/4" foam, and marine vinyl, glue it, put the "sandwich together" and I'm about to sew the edge, my first sewing with the good thread and vinyl and the visor is to big to fit under the walking feet. I take the other original visor and it is to large to fit under the feet, even with the feet up all the way with the release from behind the machine. Right now I'm just under a 1/2" clearance space. How do I adjust my feet to make them go up more? From the motion of the needle I believe I have another 1/4" I can get. The walking feet themselves are set, so I'm assuming the adjustment is inside the machine. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance. PB.

Only thing I can think of it shorten the feet posts by the same amount, I’d buy a cheap set to experiment with.

I thought about that as well. What is the clearance on your machine? Wonder if the older ones are not able to do thicker jobs?

Don't do it, they are designed with a specific foot height in mind. You'll create issues with your walk and even if it worked you'd most likely have to readjust every time you had a thinner stack. There is an adjustment but it is meant to set it to a certain spec. Just under a half inch sounds about right. If you can't cram it in there, you may have to loose the sew foam. Or go for material that comes with foam backing already, they are thinner than vinyl glued to 1/4in foam in my experience.

Thanks Adam, good advice given and taken. I have spent the last day looking all over the webs and finally found a set of specs and scanned instructions for my 1950's/60's machine and the max clearance is 1/2" space which is just to small for how I put together the visor. Live and learn and going with a plan be on foam and set-up. Thanks for reaching out.

Hey @Pitt_Boss sorry to hear you ran in to trouble here. 1/2" foot clearance is pretty standard. When I make sunvisors with vinyl or leather I dont use any foam. It gets to thick and doesn't look right. Only time I use foam on visors is with headliner material.

If you run in to any more trouble post some pictures of your visor and Ill be able to help more.

john thanks for the follow up. I did some more research and I see most of the visors are made with just the same fabric as the headliner. However, these original old Scout visors from the 70's are actually wrapped in foam. When I take apart the other original visor I will post pictures. The funny thing is the original visors do not fit under the sewing machine either however it appears the edge did not have any foam and was sewn together. Photo's to follow. Thanks again!

Interisting... I'm looking forward to seeing the photos!

After hours of video courses from the lucky needle and working with a 211W155 singer I finished my first project. 1976 Scout Interior.
Thanks for all the help!

@Pitt_Boss Great work! I love seeing what you all are able to accomplish from what you learned in the courses. Now all your friends are gonna want you to do their interior
I love how you took the extra time to get your diamond points end at the seam.

We would love to do a facebook student shout out on you and your project. Would that be ok?

Looks great…. and as an added bonus the body and rollbar look better with the new seats too

@John, you have my permission to shout it out, shout it out loud as kiss would say. Your courses are very informative and thank you for putting it all together it makes the unknown easy to accomplish.

Thanks! That is really great to hear! It make all the hard work I put in to making the courses worth it.

Presser foot height varies a great deal among machines. I was looking for a very high foot machine and had to buy a harness sewing machine, Juki TSC-411 clone, it has a 7/8" foot lift and can sew that thickness as well, it's a monster and very slow. I made sure my flatbed has a 5/8 height as so many have a 1/2. I also found a Juki LU2810 with a 3/4 height, but twice the cost of my machine so I put the money into the monster cylinder arm which is better suited for the products I make. My flatbed is a Consew P1206rb, which has an oil bath and pump so it's better suited to high speed sewing than any of my other machines which are manually oiled. I had a chat with the dealer when I bought the Cowboy CB4500 and he said to oil the hook race every hour of sewing, he's got them back from companies ruined with the metal colored by a temper-line because they were not oiled frequently. You have to know your machine!