Please note that our website has been updated and the links you mentioned are no longer valid. Also we have a new section to the site that is dedicated to “Folders & Manual Attachments”
http://www.atlatt.com/apparel/EQUIPMNT/folders/index.asp

This section is indexed by category.:

Belt Loop
Bibbing & Banding
Binding
Book Facing /
Collar Setting / Taping
Cuff Setting
Hemmer
Label Setting Foot
Lap Seam
Material Guides
Row Cap
Sleeving
Spaghetti
Strap & Handle
Stripper
Two Tone Tucking
Waistband
Welting
Zipper

When you click on the category, you will see a list of all attachments associated with that task. For example, “Belt Loop” list:

406-3 Blindstitch Belt Loop
406-3L Blindstitch Belt Loop
413 Center stitch belt folder, overlap
414 Belt and belt loop folder, butt seam
414-1 Belt loop folder
414-A Blindstitch belt loop folder with lining
414-G Belt loop folder for galkin cutters

… the # being a link to the page for that item.

At that point, you should contact a representative to make sure this is the product for you.

Please give us feedback as we want to make this site as easy as possible for you to find the product you need.

Richard

Mike, what kind of hemming are you attempting? Perhaps someone here could make a recommendation… I haved used various hemmers – they are labor saving . Not to mention they reduce the strain on your hands and wrists.

The problem we have is that the fabric is just really cantankerous. Its 4 way stretch nylon/lycra with a fairly high lycra content and won’t hold anything resembling a crease. You can sort of make the hemmer work, but it doesn’t deskill the operation like we wanted – it just transfers the skill requirement from one thing to another. Its very easy to mess up and add twist or miss the raw edge all together.

The best we could come up with for de-skilling was to serge the raw edge and use a magnetic seam guide to mark one inch. Pre-serging adds an operation, but it drastically simplifies the hemming itself. So, we replace one error-prone operation with two reliable ones.

We also spoke with Henderson Sewing Co about crafting a machine + attachment solution to simplify and speed up our hemming operations. The best they could come up with was a machine+attachment setup that would cost $8k and wouldn’t really de-skill the operation.

If it would have deskilled and sped-up, we probably could have easily made a financial case over a 3 year time horizon but since it wasn’t going to be a dramatic improvement over what we had, we couldn’t.

This is one of those cases where not having a local resource who just knows the answers kills us. I imagine that there is a solution to our problem that doesn’t cost thousands, but we don’t know the person who can just look at our setup and give us the answer.

* Try less expensive attachment options. There are premade attachments for most of the common industrial machine types. Our local shop carries them and many can also be found on ebay. They can be had for less than $50 and often will do the trick. I wouldn’t have a custom made AAC device until I was sure a generic wouldn’t do the trick.

* On more sophisticated projects than just an attachment, I would only buy a complete unit. With the waistband attacher, we bought that unit from them and a machine they recommended from another source. AAC will sell you everything and that’s the only way I’d buy in the future.

* For anything remotely expensive, I’d put either myself or Amy on a place and go see the set up work first hand, with our materials, doing exactly our operations.

* I’d try to convince my local industrial sewing machine shop to turnkey the solution for me. (Unfortunately, the store we use in Houston no longer offers that – they’ll help as much as they can, but they won’t take responsibility for solutions beyond basic sewing machine setups. Other shops in other cities may be different.)

* If you see yourself doing any manufacturing inhouse, go to the upcoming SPESA show next May. As far as I know, this is the only major show left in the US where sewn products equipment manufacturers get together in expo format to show off their goods and services. Unfortunately, this show is only held once every THREE years now. If you are going to do any manufacturing, you simply MUST go to this show.