Commercial and industrial sewing machines are categorized as heavy duty sewing machines. These are usually employed for mass production of large variety of consumables varying from car interiors and furniture to leather and other such thick materials. These machines are specifically built for the purpose and are naturally very strong and powerful. The motors that essentially form part of any electrical sewing machine are rated for more power in the case of these machines. Likewise, other components of such machines including the needless are much stronger and available in different specifications, depending on the material to be sewed. If you are considering buying a heavy duty sewing machine, you should first know your requirements and then identify the machine that will satisfactorily perform to give the required output.
A heavy duty machine is different from a standard home machine. Using a wrong machine for a particular job would either spoil the machine or affect the results that you wished to get. Here are some of the major differences between the two kinds of machines.
* The most important difference is in the specifications of needles used. If you have been handling sewing machine anytime, you would have surely broken quite a few sewing needles. That happens when you use the wrong needle or fail to judge the right tension required for it. Normal sewing machines at home are most often used for sewing lightweight fabrics, but need a specific needle, depending upon the kind of fabric being used. A standard machine is designed to sew only lightweight fabrics of limited extent. A normal sewing machine, even with the strongest and thickest needle, won’t be able to do the desired job on certain types of fabrics. That is when you need to change your sewing machine with a machine of a higher and stronger capacity
* The other important difference is the specifications of the motors used on different machines. Standard machines have a small motor designed to provide just adequate power for doing the job. As industrial sewing machines are required to do more and sew larger and stronger fabrics, they necessarily need to have more powerful and bigger motors.
* The other obvious difference between the two machines is in the space available under the lever-foot. You would have also experienced on your standard machine that sometimes it’s challenging trying to squeeze thick layers of fabric under the lever-foot but you could not really succeed and even if you did manage to fit the material, it must have caused a disaster, like your needle or possibly something else getting broken in the process! Now, an industrial machine is provided with a lever-foot that can be adjusted as per the requirements dictated by the thickness of the fabric being handled.
Whenever in doubt seek expert help. There is no point in buying the wrong sewing machine and waiting for a disaster to happen. On realizing that your normal sewing machine is unable to handle the job at hand, you should seriously consider if you should have an industrial sewing machine for the purpose.
This is very helpful! Thank you. I was just sewing machine shopping today and trying to figure out what kind to get. The main differences I could find were between heavy-duty and “regular” machines, which had me baffled. Your explanations clear that up nicely!