Boat business curiosity?

[baileyuph]

How many of you use a double needle machine ---- or three?

Do you use it with a folder that allows for sewing the double seam in one pass?

Just thinking about doing the bigger vessels and all that sewing - so I imagine those involved

using some higher tech equipment to cut time?

Just wondering and thought you types could provide some interesting reading?

Have a nice day.

Doyle

[Mojo]

We have real large sewing tables. One is 24 ft long by 12 ft wide to accommodate large patio awnings. The 2nd table is 10 x 16 ft long.
Both are dual station tables meaning that a twin needle is setup at one end and sews in one direction while a single need long arm on the other side of the tbvale sews in the other direction. We will building a new table 8 x 16 that will have our serger at one end and a single needle at the other.

Because all of our awning fabrics are double stitch runs the twin needle cut our production time in half. I used to do that part of the operation with double passes. Very time consuming.

We use folders only on the single needles. I should mention that our twins are setup with a 1/2 " gauge. Both of our twins are Highlead's and we have never had one go down. I haven't timed them in 3 years and they run 5 days a week, 5 to 6 hours a day.

Mojo

[baileyuph]

To clarify, the single needle will join the segments, then the double needle will take it from there (same
awning)?

I had some consternation if both were working on sewing requirements for the same awning - hope this
clear?

If two operators are working on the same awning (same time), is maybe where I got lost.  LOL.

The two stations  at a table - (single needle & double needle operations) - face each other or aligned in

a sequence fashion?

I bet the double sure speeds things up!

All interesting, thanks!

Doyle

[Mojo]

Doyle:

Our orders are processed by one person. In other words they take the order from start to finish. We have an iron clad rule that we never deviate from. If one person sews an awning, another person checks all measurements and quality standards. This eliminates any awning that may have a quality issue getting shipped. It gets ultra expensive if we ship out an awning that is not correct. On large awnings measurements are checked by 2 people during the production process to catch problems in the early stages. Our tolerances on a 22 ft awning are 1/4 " or less in either direction and from top to bottom. Our goal is always exactness which requires paying attention to detail by the stitcher. Anything over a 1/4 inch deviation from top to bottom on an automatic awning can cause issues with the operation of the assembly. There is a lot of calculating in regards to the gathering of fabric during sewing operations to arrive at that exact number. To complicate things even more some assemblies require a quadratic slope in the center.

In regards to the sewing operation, each stitcher has their own table. Each awning requires different segments or sewing operations. One part of the awning requires a single need run with encased spline while another part of the awning requires double stitching. With 3 tables we can keep 3 stitchers sewing at once and they can all perform various operations on their own tables.

The large size of the tables is needed for layout work. Our largest awnings we make is 22 ft long by 10 ft wide which is why we have a 24 x 12 ft table. Commercial awnings require a lot of space as well because you have fabric and frame layouts to do plus the assembly work.

I can attest to the fact that we do not have machine failures because the people who sew are very easy on our machines. We had one who would take a machine down once a week because she was so rough with handling fabric while it went through the machine. I was constantly retiming machines and adjusting hooks. In fact I had to have a backup twin needle just because she would take them down so frequently. I would be repairing one and she would break the other and I would slide one out, work on it while the fixed twin went back into production. I had one week where I spent 6 hours repairing machines. So glad she is gone. I am convinced that machine reliability is based on how well it is treated and maintained by the operator.

Mojo