Consew CP206RL Portable Walking Foot Machine

Great machine, I use it often for sewing very thick and heavy items. It works amazing!

The pulleys from the the motor to the wheel do not line up very good so the belts are always binding to one side causing a lot of extra drag on the motor. The whole unit seemed like it was put together without oil. The stitch length and direction lever could not be moved without tipping the whole machine over. When it runs, the whole machine seems like it is working way to hard and very rough. The first time I used it, the motor got very hot and started smoking. The walking foot is very rough on fabric and not smooth in it's action at all. There are a bunch of fixes online you can do to these machines to fix these problems but I feel like I should be able to pull a brand new machine out of the box and have it work at least moderately well. At first I thought I could work with this machine by oiling and getting it broken in but have since decided that it is worse than the thrift store older machines I have which just work.

I gave it 4 stars because of the lack of a good manual and accessories. I purchased it for doing vinyl boat seats. If you are doing basic cushions, then it will do the job but if you want it to do cording or piping then you have a problem. I have not found a piping foot for it so you cannot do piping or cording. I found that some of the Sailrite items would fit but not the cording foot. Someone on Amazon said they found one, but I could not. It is a tough machine and very heavy. You can download the Sailrite manual for a good manual and their videos work well. Good, Low Cost, but not for the person that gives up easily like me. I purchased a Sailrite machine so I can get on with my project.

Machine was just ok out of the box, easy to thread. Sewing through vinyl was good until you tried to slow down or stop, then it would act erratically groaning (not moving) causing you to hit the pedal harder. Then the machine takes off at almost full speed. The addition of the Sailrite Monster 2 Flyweel helped, but the gamechanger was adding the Worker B motor / controller assembly from Sailrite. Now the machine preforms flawlessly, it's a powerhouse of a motor and starts as slow as I want. At its slowest speed it about 1/2 stich per second or slower.

The walking foot part of the sewing machine did operate good but you could not get it to actually engage unless you got on the pedal more than need be to get it moving. And then as soon as it starts moving, it takes off. I tried the whole break in procedure. Made no difference. But the biggest issue was that no matter how I adjusted the thread tension it would continuously snap and I was using very heavy duty thread. Took it to a repair shop for them to look at, but still was not much to do for directing problems ultimately returned nova

I previously reviewed this machine and stated that it needed more low speed torque, but it turns out that after the break-in period it sews great. To speed up break-in, I oiled everything liberally and ran the machine at various speeds without thread for 8 minutes in 7-8 different sessions, re-oiling each time, allowing the motor to cool in-between (I don't think the motor actually got hot, but it was simply precaution.). You'll notice that the oil run-off will turn grey with fine metal flakes. This is normal for any machine including new cars. The machine has always produced perfectly accurate stitches (2 to four layers of mid-weight leather) and would do so at high speeds, but now it does the same perfect stitches at really low speeds, which is what I needed. In fact, I can now bump the pedal and fire out one stitch at a time, which is great for sewing around tight curves on very expensive leather upholstery pieces. So approximately 18,000 stitches in, I have had NO needle breaks, NO bobbin skips and only about 2 thread breaks which were not the machine's fault, with all the stitches being extremely consistent in terms of both length and spacing.

This machine is a beast. Out of the box, it was very tight. Had to take off the covers, oil it, run for 8 minutes (with varying speed), let it sit for an hour, repeat (oil each time) apx 8 times before it started to loosen up. I was able to put an 8 tooth gear on the motor (stock is 11) and that allows it to move nice and slow. After one rather complicated auto seat (bench, buckets, center console) it is thoroughly broken in and runs very well. Be aware that there are no 'set-it-and-forget-it' protections on this.. you have to adjust presser foot tension and thread tension with changes to material and thickness. I used DEX 90 thread with the included needles with good results. It's not fancy, it's not easy.. just a strong, simple work horse. Overall, I am very happy with it.

My wife was very excited to order and receive her leather sewing machine. unfortunately it arrived with a broken belt cover. Part number w050. just a piece of plastic. Also unfortunately, next we reached out to the seller trough amazon. They informed us they do not provide replacement parts at all. and they gave us the information to contact CONSEW directly to request a replacement part. so we reached out to CONSEW directly. guess what? they only deal with their distributers. They will not even talk to the customer about the parts they have. that was their response at first. the gentleman we talked to told us up front. when we explained that the seller Universal Sewing Supply gave us their information and refused to contact them he took our information and the part information and told us he would get it shipped out to us. nothing came of that phone call. so we reached out to CONSEW again to see what the status was. the person that answered the phone this time refused to even hear my wife out. she just cut her off and kept talking over her and telling her she had to contact the seller. When I called back she was a little nicer to deal with. she heard me out and tried to get the information about the seller so that she could reach out to them to try to get this resolved. but there are two Universal sewing supply distributers and you cant get the address of the supplier through amazon. so now we are stuck returning the sewing machine for a refund. luckily it is within the 30 days or we would be totally out of luck. we will never order anything from Universal Sewing supply again. all over a little piece of plastic.