Quote Originally Posted by rspears View Post
I bought one for $400 from a guy who had picked it up new at a CA Goodguys show where Ron "The Stitcher" Magnus was pimping machines for the vendor. He talked to Ron, who told him, "It's all the machine you'll ever need" so he bought the machine, motor and table with foot speed, knee presser foot control. It's a Yamata FY5318 which is a clone of a JUKI 201. The problem is that it stitches waaaaaay too fast - I've been told that it's a drapery machine as opposed to an upholstery macine which creeps. I'm going to be looking at either rigging an intermediate jackshaft to cut the speed down to about 25%, or investing in a new variable speed motor for it. If I were doing it again I would shop for an old JUKI, which is what many (if not most) of the shops use, and they are serviced by your local industrial sewing machine company. I think you need to shop upholstery shops for competitive pricing before you jump into learning the business. Just my $0.02.
I bought a used Consew production machine last winter. It was really fast but the treddle speed control is mechnical and I changed the linkage by adding a bell crank that allow me to increase the travel of the linkage and make it less sensitive and slower. It made a big difference.

John