[sheathmaker]

To follow up on Carl's last excellent post.

The Tippman Boss is an excellent first machine. It'll do probably up to 7/8" thickness and use the heavier needles and threads. Like every machine it will have it's own "personality" and once you are in sync, life is good. Just remember full stroke up and down each stitch. Short strokes equal big problems. It will not get along with lighter weights and thinner materials. If you are doing those as part of your construction like inlays and decorative stitches, then you will need a flat bed machine, but once again something that is heavy duty for its class, capable of doing 3/8" easily.

I started out with a Tippman because it was slow and forgiving, (I had number 3, which was the first one sold out of the factory), then I upgraded my sheath styles to include inlays and went with an Artisan 797AB flat bed, then I upgraded from the Tippman to an Artisan Toro 4000 heavy stitcher. Both the Artisans had clutch motors. I later changed over to all Cobra equipment with the Cobra 18 flat bed, Cobra 4 heavy stitcher, and Cobra 14 splitter, all with servo motors.

(Incidentally, the servo motors do a lot to straighten out the learning curve. You can sew as slowly as you like with ease)

The reason I switched from Artisan is primarily personal, but the customer service and help after the sale is absolutely perfect with the Cobra guys. I have complete confidence in them. They were the tie breaker between the choice of brands. The reason I mention this because the Cobra, Cowboy, Artisan and any other Juki Clone are all essentially the same machine and perform exactly or at least very similarly, and that goes for the heavy stitcher and the flat beds, and they are priced similarly respectively. The difference is in the trust I have with the people who back up the machines. I will be with Cobra from here on out.

So to sum up, if you are going to be doing primarily sheath edges and thicker stuff up to 3/4+ inch then the Tippman would be a reasonable choice for you, but the price of a Tippman gets fairly well along toward the price of one of the motorized stitchers, and sooner or later if you stay with it, you'll probably want one.

Good luck

EDit to add: I don't know about Cowboy and Artisan any more but the Cobra 3 is less money and is the same as the Cobra 4 except for the depth of the throat and for sheath making it has all the depth you will need and then some. I have yet to use up all the throat space my Cobra 4 has.

Paul