Another new addition to the shop!
Like many others, I have been a Juki girl for a while. My first industrial sewing machine was the Juki DDL-5550N. I still have it and it’s still faithful-ish. Some user error has kept me from its ful potential, so I can’t fully blame the machine… or the store I purchased it from.
I bought my Juki in 2020, when the whole world was shut in and all the businesses were popping up and nobody had inventory in stock as a result. It took about two weeks for it to arrive from the west coast, but man when it did I was EXCITED!
I struggled to put it together, because it was in so many pieces and the instructions lacked really bad. After watching a few set up videos on YouTube University, I managed to get it together and boom! Business was booming right??? WRONG!
When I say a STEEEEEEEEEEP learning curve, I kid you not! I have now had that machine for roughly three years and I didn’t learn about the importance of thread size and proper tension until I purchased an industrial embroidery machine and that’s EVERYTHING in embroidery. So now that I’ve got a much better handle on tension, my stitches finally look much better.
To be 100% honest and transparent, I refuse to produce products for you all that aren’t acceptable in my eyes. That’s important to me and important that your products last.
That out of the way, let’s get to why you’re really here. I had my eye on the Juki DNU-1541 even before I got the DDL-5550N. I’ve been literally STALKING this machine on YouTube and looking at comparison videos and other bag makers using the machine as well. I said “Girl, just get it!”, but knowing that I want to get into using real leather, I decided to look at leather shops for machinery.
I have a Tandy Leather locally and I remembered seeing machines in their stores. I checked out their website and saw leather-working machines. My gears began turning and my curiosity began eating at me, so back to YouTube University I went!
Honestly, there wasn’t many videos on the machine I had my eye on, which was a bit terrifying. I realized a lot of the mechanics of the machine are similar to the Juki DNU-1541, so I decided to be a catalyst.
I bit the bullet and purchased a Leather Machine Co. Cobra Class 18 industrial sewing machine. This machine is HEEEEAAAAAVVVYYYYYYY DUTY! It is much more heavy than my Juki, but I like it. I didn’t have to put the stand/table together, which was really nice too.
Because there aren’t many videos to help with mechanics and usage of this machine, I’m going to try to get better with my recording and offer help videos on my YouTube channel for this particular machine. I also want to give an overview of the first stitches and a follow up after a few months to have a comparison. I’m going to try to do better with the pictures and videos for y’all, so please have patience.
In the meantime, enjoy this quick glimpse at my new baby… and I wouldn’t mind a little help giving him a name, if anyone has ideas they would like to offer. 😍
Tandy Pro Cobra Class 18 by the Leather Company
