what a week!
Published: Monday, October 9th 2006
UPDATE:- I shall be in New York 28th October- 1st November and staying at the Benjamin Hotel. Please email me if you are interested in meeting me. I shall also be bringing various suit lengths from one of my Yorkshire cloth merchants. All are for sale and fabulous quality.
I went to the races as mentioned on Saturday part of the reason for a break was this.
Last week was unbelievable I had nothing but problems with my very small number of machines.
The first thing to go was my boiler the pump packed in.
I have a self contained Veit boiler that gives me around 80psi of steam.
As a one man band doing everything it is extremely important for me to have 'steam' at all times as I press my garments a little at a time as I go along to save me time when pressing off, I also use steam continuously through the day under pressing the garments as I make them.
I did however manage after stripping the pump down to get the boiler going again.
Then, the vacuum table decided to throw one. The vac table is in my case a rectangular table with a movable arm that I use for my pressing and under pressing.
This table is operated by pressing a long bar with my foot which then starts a fan or impellor style of blade to spin very fast.
This has two effects, firstly it holds the work in position by sucking the work to the table and removing all the steam that is used pressing the garment, again I use this vacuum table all day every day.
I have no idea how I found the electrical fault with this, but I did and managed to get it going!.
This table of mine is at least 40 years old and like everything in tailoring as we say, " there is a good yard of cloth in it yet"!.
The singer 269 bartack machine was next to go by starting to throw stitches enough was enough now it was time for the heavy mob.
I was straight on the phone to my father as he has over 50 years experience within the tailoring sector and was a former head engineer for the late Sir Montague Burton.
My father is a fabulous sewing machine engineer and before retiring was one of, if not THE most respected sewing machine engineers in the wholesale trade.
Dad checked all my machines ensuring they were set up correct and making minute adjustments here and there, I thought my job was complex but moving parts, cogs, wheels, bearings, cams, belts, levers, and electrics, the check list was endless!.
All turned out fine after around four hours of tinkering and tweaking and I was ready to get stuck in again.
How appropriate my father mentioned a previous discussion regarding a double breasted Navy overcoat he was after!.
Pictures below are my father at work.
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