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.........--- Sailrite LSZ-1 Sewing Machine Foot Pedal ---
Ruth had done a lot of mods with the trusty Singer Industrial Machine (which is for sale), but she wanted to do a lot more big projects for the boat, such as the sailpack/cover on the previous pages. We decided to bite the bullet and buy her a Sailrite Ultrafeed LSZ-1 sewing machine.
When it arrived and she started to us it she and I were quite disappointed with the foot control for the sewing speed. It just didn't seem to have the fine feel and slow speed capabilities that we thought it should have. We had Sailrite send us a second one to try out to see if it was our foot control that was the problem. It was no better, so it was returned. You could go slow with the stock one, but it took a lot of concentration.
I figured that if I built a new foot feed that incorporated the stock one in it, but slowed the travel down we might have the control we wanted. So the following pictures and text will show what I did. You now have to push the new pedal further to get the same movement on the old pedal. Now you can easily control the speed and slow the machine down to a on stitch at a time speed with no problem.
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I made the above box to no certain dimensions, just what looked like it would work. you can see the stock pedal at the left in the box. There is a board to the left of it that keeps it from sliding that direction and boards to either side to locate it in the center.
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A view from the other end. The platform to the right is for your heel.
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This is the new pedal.
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It slides into the box where the arrows are pointed and the one end rests on the top of that 2 X 4 and the other end rests on the original pedal top. It can't slide out the back of the box and the board over the pedal keeps it from sliding forward. It just sits in there.
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Here I'm sliding the pedal into the box.
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Here it is in the box ready to go. The arrow points to the stock pedal under the new one.
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Here the pedal is up and....
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...here I've pushed it down.
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The previous pictures were taken with the pedal up on a table. Here is is down ready to work. It is big enough that it doesn't slide around easily, but you can slide it to where it is comfortable for you. A couple things make it work better than the original. One is the long length with the hinge point further back. The other is that you can rest your heel and weight of your leg on the back platform and just use your toe or rock you leg forward.
This is simple and crude, but works way better than the stock one by itself. Ruth loves it and the LSZ-1 now,
Sum
