Robust sewing machine recommendation

[greentea72]

Can anyone recommend a robust sewing machine suitable for medium/ thick material I mainly want to use it for making curtains, cushion covers, canvas bags. Though it would be good to still have some basic dressmaking functions , button hole,zipper etc. I have a 20 year old Toyota and it is not man enough for the job. I Am on a budget of about £100 but I am quite happy to get second hand.

Mmmm. Not having much luck with my mid priced Janome on thick stuff despite a size 90 jeans needle and a walking foot. It doesn't really want to go through the joins at all although it is OK with the plain straight edges but only after a lot of faffing around.

Can't recommend another machine though so I am probably not being very helpful. Just sharing my tale of woe really. It is also very temperatmental about the thread it will allow me to use whether the fabric is thick or not.

my stepmother is a seamstress and has always had Elna

Vintage Bernina. They're available on eBay and the more basic models are not ridiculously expensive either.

I've had my original 830 for two years now and have ditched my computerised Janome over it. It's a work horse, sews eight layers of thick denim as though it were butter and has never once had any problems. It's fast. And the stitching quality is simply beautiful.

The one issue I have with it is that it is heavy as hell due to its solid metal construction. However, this also makes it super stable even at full speed.

Bernina all the way - the old ones that have metal gears etc rather than the modern plastic ones.

I have an 807 now which cost me about £200, had a 701 before that (sold on ebay for ~£100...), my mum has owned her 707 for nearly 50 years and it's still going strong.

Can't beat them :o

I think weight is important. It needs to be HEAVY. The more stable it is, the more robust it is, and the less likely it is to shake itself to bits. Or overheat, apparently that's a risk with some modern machines which simply aren't designed to run for long stretches.

Not at all helpful, but I've got a Janome 6600P which is heinously expensive (mine was a gift - though I guess one might come up on ebay for a surviveable price?) and can sew pretty much anything. But when I bought it, the lady in the sewing shop said the thing to do was to take a sample of the fabric you wanted to sew into the shop and see which machines are man enough.

Btw, you may also be looking for a double lift - ie if you are sewing many layers of thick fabric, you need to be able to get it under the foot easily, and a double lift (foot lifts in two stages to about twice the standard height) helps with that.