The Sewing Place

Sewing Nylon Webbing - Which Machine?

Maundster

Sewing Nylon Webbing - Which Machine?
« on: January 23, 2019, 08:07:22 AM »
Hello all, I am new to sewing and struggling to find the right machine.

I will be making my own dog collars and leads out of nylon webbing

I also want to embroider onto the dog collars, I will want the lettering to be fairly large, around 4cm.

Will I need a separate embroidering machine? Or is there a good sewing/embroider machine out there that would suit my needs?

Morgan

Re: Sewing Nylon Webbing - Which Machine?
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2019, 16:22:21 PM »
It's all down to how thick the webbing will be and the toughness of the material.
You didn't mention your level of sewing knowledge, so I hope my reply is at the right pitch.



Sewing -
The most inexpensive way to start is with an old style all metal mechanical sewing machine that does both straight stitch and zigzag.  It needs to have the needle punching power.  Pick one up 2nd hand and have it serviced and set up for the job - including the height that you can lift the foot for clearance.  Depending on where you are and what you find in the charity shops or in the attics of friends' grandparents etc., you could pick up a decent, robust machine for (free as a gift or) £20 - £60 and then expect to pay £35 - £60 for a full service and set up for collar making.   It's worth investing in a decent tank of a machine that will keep going forever and ever.


Perhaps learn about making the collars first because that will be less costly and you will still have to buy a stock of webbing, fabrics and hardware. 
Heads up - you will not be able to make them as cheaply as the mass produced factory items.  You may even find you can buy a ready made cheaper than you can buy the webbing.  Your time and labour has a cost - be realistic.
Bespoke items are usually aimed at a different market group than the discount and other outlets where the mass produced stuff is sold.


For embroidery - you may find it more cost effective to buy blanks and embroider them rather than make your own stock.
If this is for a fledgling business or a personalise crafty items side line then do a bit more research about learning machine embroidery and do your sums.
It's straight forward enough to learn how to do embroidery, but there are lots of different bits to it and it's not cheap.
How you go about learning and setting up the embroidery side will be down to how much cash you have to invest up front and how much time you have to learn the ropes at the level you enter the game.


the low risk route is to buy a 2nd hand basic stand alone embroidery machine to learn the basics of producing machine embroidery. there are lots of these around as people trade up for bigger and more.
Once you've got the hang of the machine, designs, hooping, stabiliser, troubleshooting, needles, thread etc. then you will be better placed to decide which machine you want to get for embroidering your dog collars.
Having done your sums, it may be the time to consider one of the smaller multi-needle machines especially if you're going into production.
there are several facebook groups that you could join and you'll pick up a huge amount of information and know how from those.
Start with this one[size=78%]https://www.facebook.com/groups/1579174022348838/[/size]