Sewing heavy curtain material on a vintage hand cranked Singer

[garynortheast]

Complete beginner questions coming up now!
I have a 1940 28k hand cranked Singer. The machine works beautifully, having serviced it properly, so the intention is to use it for my various sewing jobs and repairs. I have some heavy curtains, the bottom hems of which have come partly unstitched so I need to sew them back up. The machine is an ex school machine so there will be no special parts fitted to it, it’ll be set up for normal home sewing.
Is there anything I need to know before starting on the job? Will the machine sew these curtains?
 
Thanks in advance for any help and info.

[BrendaP]

@garynortheast  yes that machine should sew heavy curtain fabric. 

Are your curtains made with a visible machined stitched hem?  Most curtains, especially the heavier ones are made with either a blind stitched hem or hand sewn hems to be as invisible as possible.

[garynortheast]

Thanks for the reply BrendaP. The original hem has been machine stitched, but then it’s been turned up and hemmed again, this time using a hand stitch. The machine stitching is very well done and barely visible, and as I’m currently using the curtain as a door curtain I’m happy to machine stitch it again.

Would I need to adjust anything to take account of the heavy fabric or shall I just get on and give it a go?

[BrendaP]

Just do a test piece on fabric of about the same thickness/number of layers to check the tension settings, otherwise yes just get on with it.

[steve_h]

You may have to increase the presser foot pressure a little to help pull the heavier material. Just have to start and see. If it will see lots of sunlight, you might want to use a thread with good UV protection. Polyester is better with UV than nylon. Enjoy that nice classic machine. It'll sew pretty much anything you can get under the presser foot.

[Mr Twingo]

Make sure that there is enough space under the presser foot for the fabric to pass under. Folded layers quickly become quite thick.

Make sure you use plenty of pins to hold the hem in position. The upper layers will pass under the presser foot at a slightly different rate from the side being pulled by the feed dogs. Usually you won't notice it, but on longer lengths of fabric, it can become obvious. I sometimes use a little glue (Pritt Stick) to stop layers misaligning.

[garynortheast]

Thank you all so much for the replies. All really useful information for novices like me.