Here are a couple of visual updates to an old post that mentioned a few industrial sewing machine shops in Chicago Illinois. They are scattered about from the far south end of the loop, to the near northwest side. We’ll start with a few screen captures off of Google Maps, and then the appropriate business cards.

Hwangs Sewing Machine is a little shop on Lawrence just east of Elston ave. They have good and honest prices for thier industrial machines, but Presser feet were a bit costly. At least there are a lot of options to choose from; they had a perfectly smooth running Pfaff 145 for about $650, very clean bar-tackers, several manual and neumatic grommet/rivet setters, and plenty of more common-place straight stitch machines sergers, etc.. Call ahead to make sure they are open, as their hours are not entirely dependable, you may also need to ring the doorbell when you arrive. They do carry needles and bolt-on folders, but not much thread for sewing purposes, the only thread they had seemed to be for sergers.

M.G. Sewing Machine Co. is an even smaller store front than Hwangs, luckily it is very organized and an effecient use of space. Although they buy and sell, and trade, all of the machines in the shop were new machines. The owner said that used machines are for sale, but on a limited basis. All makes and models are dealt there from Consew and Juki, to Pfaff and Singer. He also does very good repair work for any machines you have at home. The presser feet are generic, but a much better price than Hwangs, and the needles are a plenty, ranging in all shapes and sizes. M.G. is in the first floor retail space of an old apartment building so it is easy to miss, keep your eyes peeled and find the buzzer to be let in.

It is hard to say exactly what the purpose of this particular machine is, but it is definitely worth speaking about. It is also hard to say what exactly its proper title would be, for sake of this entry, we will call it a freestanding cylinder arm. The first image is from Bega, although it is quite messy in the background it was the best picture for a sense of scale - you should see two, a white one and a green one. In the other two images you can begin to see that it is kind of like a combination of the bad robots in the Terminator, and the good robot Johnnie5. The motor sits on top of the whole apparatus and the belt connects to the head-pulley at the front of the machine (or at least as close to the actual needle bar as you can be). It has two pedals at the bottom, one for the drive, and one for possibly a stop mechanism, or maybe a thread cutting device. It is hard to imagine the second smaller pedal would be for reverse, or that there is reverse at all - as you can see from the diagram, it would probably not work in reverse, or if it did - it would be quite cumbersome and clumsy. Not to mention that because these are probably always used with a folder, there would not be the possibility of moving the fabric back, you can see where the folder is mounted in the lower image. What is also unique about this machine is that it uses a chain stitch instead of a lock stitch. This is for one of two reasons, either it is due to tradition or it is because of how small the cylinder arm is underneath where the stitching occurs, therefor there is no room for a bobbin. Because the chain stitch can be fed like a serger (or overlock) machine, there is no need for a bobbin - not to mention that even if you were using a large bobbin case, you would have to replace it every few minutes of sewing time. This is why there are six thread tension knobs on top, one for each of the three stitch-seams, top and bottom. This particular one in the two lower pictures was set up to lay three stitches, three needles, 3 sets of threads.

But once your set up with your material and have your thread routed and folder in place, you can go ahead and lay down some clean seams with ease. As you can see in the lower image, the material comes from both sides and meets up at the end of the cylinder arm. Why you cannot have the same action/result with a regular machine is a bit of a mystery. Although, what this machine allows you is not to have any struggle with your material fighting for space on the table between the needle bar and the structure of your machine to the immediate right. You could get an extended arm machine with an extra long bed, but this cylinder arm type machine allows your fabric to be completely free on both sides, which prevents unnecessary tugging and pulling of your fabric. When all is said and done, this machine is intended for the heaviest of industry people. To have this in a home environment, or even a small company would be pretty luxurious, consider this a good example of the right tool for the job: but only once you have learned every other way of accomplishing the same types of stitch and seam combinations with more typical machines.

Here are the last three shops to enter the dialogue of the Brother DB2-B791-015 site. They are Ace Sewing Machine Co., Alberoni Sewing Machine Inc., and Best Sewing Machine. All of which are good shops and deserve their credibility.

Ace is an otherwise regular destination. They have a very well organized retail area where you can pick up a lot of things that non of the other shops offer, like small tools, button and craft notions, miscellaneous threads (and in smaller amounts than 6000 yds.), quality grommet presses, pattern making kits, shears and snips in all price ranges, pattern paper, and other products. Ace is always well staffed with plenty of people to help out and answer questions. They have a fair amount of plastic models (compact/transportable “home” machines), and some basic industrial machines. If there was a downfall to their shop it would be the lack of used industrial machines. But that does not mean it isn’t worth a look inside, they have a good selection of presser feet, and thread for overlock machines (sergers), not to mention some various heavy tools for fabrication of who knows what in regards to sewing machines, but the kind of stuff that you would expect to see in a hardware store.

Alberoni is a non-partial destination, you can find just about anything new that you may need there. It is a mail-order company also - so when you arrive, expect to stand at a counter and talk to salespeople, who can find what it is that you may be looking for in their database. The sales floor is small but does have some machines on display, along with the proverbial case of presser feet, which are always a weird experience. Apparently when presser feet are in a display case, they suddenly become more expensive, even when a few blocks away you can find the same feet for ten dollars less. No matter how you cut it, Alberoni is a very clear place to find newer equipment and have clear communications about it.

Best Sewing Machine is perhaps the newest retail space of all. Not much can be gathered at this time except that the salesmen there was clearly knowledgeable and was willing to answer questions. It has a very clean retail space and is easy to browse about their many used machines and small parts.