Consew CP206RL Portable Walking Foot Machine

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.

In an 8 hour day we spent 1 hour fixing the tension mechanism so it wouldn't break threads, we spend 1 hour sewing, and we spent 6 hours fixing the machine. Do yourself a favor, buy the machine, plug it in, run it for 5 minutes and then take it directly to your local sewing machine repair shop for a full rebuild. The mechanism inexplicably froze up mid stitch, bound up solid. The connecting rods were crashed into the casting, the needle carrier was scraping against the upper mechanism. We had to attack it with jewelers files, die grinders, torque wrenches, and micrometer and an impact driver. All of the hardware is mismatched: Philips here, standard there, whitworth on the back, the needle is just vaguely held by a set screw, the tensioners had sharp edges that frayed our thread, and random hardware kept colliding with the castings. Seriously the build quality of this machine is horrendous. The only thing worse is the instruction manual which appears to have been written and illustrated by the 6th grade class of the 1986 Chernobyl public school system. Bad Quality. Not easy to use. Defective workmanship. The foot pedal has two speeds: way too fast and smelly. Drips more oil than a British sports car. I thought i was spending money on a quality precision machine but this is more like a RBMK reactor, shoddily built and engineered by committee.

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.

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.

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

Worked for my for my DIY sailboat Bimini project. Pedal / speed takes a little bit of practice to control. Maybe not as refined as others just like it, but for a third of the cost of the name brand, it is well worth it.

JUNK DO NOT BUY !!!!!! I have been using a mini walking foot machine for 40 years. Ordered a new one thinking that consew is a quality name. It arived with a wobbly hand wheel that would slip and refuse to move the needle up and down. The clutch is bad. Had to spend $86.00 to return this machine, and am now waiting and waiting for my money to be returned so i can purchase a new one. I am in limbo and cannot finish a project until I get a new machine. Dont gamble on getting a broken machine then throwing good money after bad to loose your hard earned cash for nothing. Very disapointed with this seller and getting no response from them. Make sure you buy from someone that gives free returns

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.