Sail Repair

[Randyonr3]

At the present we have 7 different machines in our shop, 2 are sailrite.. and one of those is a sailmaker.. the sailrite sailmaker is a brothers machine, and we've carried it for a number of years aboard the boat and then when we opened the shop, it was our first workhorse..
There are a couple of Items on the sailrite machine I dont care for but for the money, its probably the best, and the people at sailrite are top-noch in getting you spare parts and goodies you'll need to do the job. their smaller machines are also portable.
something to think about..
when a sail is being built from the start, you are adding pannels to the sail so the under-arm or bed does not need to be very large, BUT when doing repairs, and believe me, I've done a good share, trying to roll up half a sail thats 30 to 40 feet in length and get it to pass under the bed area is really a pain. Try to roll up half of your sail as you'd be stitching a seam and try pushing it through a hole the size of a coffee can. Thats the one drawback to a small portable machine.
In building sails now, I use a Juki 'walking foot" with a bed size of about 20 inches and sometimes I still have problems.
Something you might check out.......
Today, while surffing E-Bay, under "Brothers Sewing Machines" I saw an older sailrite sailmaker... they are heavy, but they will sew your shoes to your deck if you have a need to......