By the time it had gotten cold out, I knew my interest in sewing went beyond my little necchi. I still wasn’t sure exactly which heavier duty machine I was most interested in, but I was learning more about them. Industrial machines are actually just stitch and feed mechanisms, lacking a motor. These are called machine “heads”. They’re driven by a universal 3/8” belt that runs from the motor pulley to a channel on the heads’ hand wheel. Typically heads are only interchangeable on the same table if they use the same bed dimensions, like if they share a common predecessor. I wanted to make a plug-in style workstation that could run a couple different uniquely sized sub industrial machines I had been looking at.
Why ‘sub’ industrial? Well~ good question. the category doesn’t really exist, but to my mind it describes a type. There are exceptions but typically an industrial machine isn’t meant to be casually taken in and out. They’re pretty much built into their workstation on a permanent basis. There’s usually a good reason— the Adler upholstery machine I’ve eventually come to own weighs nearly 80 pounds! To plug that kind of machine in temporarily would require an overhead hoist— a nice daydream anyways.
Sub- industrials on the other hand, top out at… lets say 50 lbs I guess? (there is not a firm number). But in general they’re more a result of bygone regimes of mechanical quality, “overbuiltness” and other kinds of consumer materialism like home industry. For my purposes, they’re smaller than *the average* industrial and are light enough that they can be moved and stored in standardized crates without a lot of fuss or lifting equipment. They’re often antique. Sometimes they’re deeply industrial and simply very small, like the incredibly dense Merrow sergers. So this table was meant to be a hybrid strong enough to hold a true, small industrial, and also pruned back to leave space for larger, over-engineered domestics.
The inside edge of the opening on the tabletop has two ledges on its profile to support a tray insert. Pretty much anything that can be mounted within the perimeter of the tray can be aligned to the motor pulley below and then as a unit is easily taken in and out. The trays themself form a sandwich with an upper and lower box as a part of a crate scheme I also designed.
I ended up taking too much time working out different designs and didn’t pay close enough attention to the changing season. It was starting to get too cold to work effectively in the shop and I had finally won an ebay auction on a machine head. Spurred by panic and frustration thinking of a winter with nothing to do I simplified my better drafts into something very executable and I set about sourcing its deliberately simple materials.
I started with 2x4s that I joined together using laps. The part that the motor attaches to is not tied into the structure, but is more like a spacer (it was also friction fit in place). I could kind of tell just by looking at it that the table was too heavy, And not wanting to lose my progress to the colder and colder days, I made a rash decision to rout the bulk of the 2x4s on their hidden faces, making sure to leave a flange at the edge for stability. The cross members that attached to the steel base were also left intact.
In my routing zeal I made a template to recess the power switch to the motor— I felt way cooler than I was qualified for until I realized I had routed the wrong side of the table! Its ok, its ok! We designers know how to rationalize: now I have a reversible tabletop… only not quite. The biggest shame of it is that the deep route of this little ad hoc nightmare happened between my main supports, right where the dead load was most likely to bear down. I was getting worried about how it would work fully loaded, while being leaned on. Take my advice traveler: just craft a design and execute it, forget this nonsense.
Feeling sobered by the limitations of freehand woodworking, or eh “going off plan”, I tried to build the intricate trays with as much scientific accuracy as I could bring to the task. I used a 1 1/8” forstner bit to drill the recesses for the hinges. I made jigs using scrap masonite for pretty much every operation, used a fine mechanical pencil for marking, planned all my brad nails, even shaved a piece of cork to act as a shim under one of the hinges etc, etc. And the results show! I somehow lucked into a zero tolerance finish on a couple of the moments in the build.
On the second of the trays I had just as much luck in cutting and machining accurately but I failed to correctly measure the margin needed for the belt to pass by the machine base. It turned out to be really narrow! So I had to shift the recess I had routed to the right by about a quarter of an inch. That would have been enough but I had already drilled my hinge recesses according to my original layout! I filled and sanded the gap, and re-drilled but it really shows. For my purposes it got me sewing on the Pfaff during the cold months so I don’t really mind, but jeez…
Like a lot of the things I made over the past year, I have fonder feelings for the things I learned about myself and the extent and limit of my abilities than I do for my specific creation. Learning about how matters of construction inform matters of design, etc. Learning the specific behavior and limit of materials at different sizes, and how different tools interact with it. Looking back on the whole year its also cool to see my tolerances get smaller and my finish quality becoming more considered. Each project has been a step.
I think it showed me more exactly the way I would truly prefer a multi-machine worktable to be, and how I might actually make that. It definitely showed me how much I would value a logical and clear space for woodworking though, as I had begun to feel some dignity in my work. Even my not-so-crafty expirimentation had yielded at least one worthy result: I rounded the front corners of the table to keep fabric from snagging. I continued to work on a couple designs through the winter and to conceptualize what a portable woodworking kit would look like for my interests. Once I get a more carefully considered production space up and running I’m looking forward to building version 2!
