Kwokhing, direct. Not sure they sell direct anymore though. There are a lot of copies on ebay but be aware you will have to drill and tap the back of your machine. Worth it in my opinion though.

castellano

thankyou! i am confused why that got skipped too!

You need to hold the thread ends firmly in place when you start sewing. The high thread tension will pull the tails back into the machine if you dont hold them. Hope that solves the problem. You have a great machine!

1. *Make sure your needle is all the way up* (if not, it messes with timing and causes other issues) 2. *Timing:* with no thread in the way, rotate it by hand with the cover off the lower bobbin area. Rotate by hand in the normal stitching direction. After the needle comes fully down, then starts raising back up, watch the hook. You want the needle to raise just a little bit, then the hook reach the middle of the needle right around the middle of the clearance gap/bite in the needle. If it doesn't, then you need to adjust your timing. 3. If timing is good, also check the *gap between the hook and the needle.* If in doubt, use a new needle so you are sure it isn't bent. The gap should be tiny, smaller than thread, but also still have a gap and not hitting the needle. If you have a wide gap, then of course it will miss the grab sometimes. Lookup how to adjust that if needed. (I've had to do this to 2/3 machines at work, and it makes a big difference if the gap is 2-3x what it should be) Tip: if adjusting, try pinching a tiny piece of printer paper or sticky note in between to hold a tiny gap while tightening, then see what that gap is without the paper. How hard you pinch helps adjust the result. 4. if both those are now good, *thread the machine. You want light-ish tension close to even top and bottom.* Note, if your tension release mechanism works, with the foot up, it is slacking the tension disks, so you need to drop your foot and rotate so the foot isn't pinching the thread to actually feel the correct tension. 5. If tension is close to even, *try softer or slightly heavier tension* (top and bottom) and see if it helps. If you are too light, things will pull unevenly. If you are too heavy, it may fray and break thread, and bend the needle as it moves, etc. 6. *Take up spring adjustment:* With a scrap of cloth, rotate by hand and try to avoid backspinning. _Much like hand sewing,_ there is a pattern with the machine where it creates a loop, then pulls it tight, then slacks, & repeats. As the needle comes down, the thread should be tight. The take-up lever & spring are what do this. *Just as the eye of the needle reaches/starts to enter your material, it should let off tension.* Not way before and not after. It will need this slack to allow the hook to catch and loop it all the way around it to trap the lower thread. Yep, that means really thick multi-layers of material might have issues, because this setting is a bit off if you haven't re-adjusted it from less layers. That's part of why they can have issues. If the take-up tension is *too slack and/or slacks too early, you can have issue like tangling and missing stitches.* If it's too late or excessive tension, it may cause *diagonal stitches and side walking and bunching* from that excess tension, it will break string often, and it's likely to *flex the needle into the hook, so you may hear a nasty clicking* and break needles and/or bogging rough sound from the uneven machine load of trying to stretch the upper string around the lower bobbin. So how do you set that right? *You want as little tension as necessary to sew right.* Typically, their will be a set screw that locks the shaft the tension spring rides on (may also have to loosen the nut outside it). Rotating that shaft adds or removes tension. Then there is a bottom stop for the take-up spring to come to rest on. With test cloth in place, loosen the take-up spring (by turning the shaft it rides on) and back the bottom stop out of the way for the moment. Hand turn a complete cycle and continue while watching the thread tension. Every time you adjust, you need to *do a complete cycle to avoid seeing the **_old_** tension.* Start tightening the shaft little by little, approaching keeping the string tight until the goal. As you get closer, you will need to add the stop, so it doesn't keep pulling with partial tension too long. So your 2 adjustments are where the stop is (cuts off tension abruptly) and how much tension you have on the spring. *That will sort out most machines (and make many machines people didn't realize were only half right suddenly work much nicer).* If you are unlucky and getting all that right doesn't solve your issue, you have something deeper out of sync. I'd just take it to a shop at that point.

Iggy Reilly The only difference is the size of the hook/bobbin. If you're regularly using T138 for large projects, like upholstery you'll notice the smaller capacity of the 145's bobbin size but it's not a deal breaker in my opinion. I'd go with whichever is in better condition. Feel free to message me privately and I'll take a look at the two machines you're considering and give you my thoughts. Goodluck!

thesergeant Thanks for the offer; I'm glad I went directly to the expert instead of wasting my time on Yahoo! I'll send you pics if both machines are posted on CL. Both are in good cosmetic shape but I've not yet seen either in person. The 545 is from a professional upholsterer's shop, i.e. was probably maintained pretty well.

The Pfaff 145 and the 545 are identical....only difference is the bobbin sizes it takes. The 545 takes the larger bobbin and thus people like that because you can sew longer and not have any connected stitching due to bobbin thread running out. The Pfaff 1245 is similar to this machine but that on has internal belts.....not like the 145....all gears. If you are looking for a reliable work horse.....145 is it.

I have an 145 H4 you can sew up to 8 layers of leather.

Specifically the 145 H3

It's been on my to do list for awhile but my Pfaff is in storage right now as we are in the middle of a move.