The Upholstery Forum

I have an opportunity to acquire an industrial serger. It is a Willcox & Gibbs Superlock 3 thread. It appears to be older but in decent condition. I am curious as to how many of you might have an industrial serger? Do you use it very often?

Automotive and marine fabrics are generally backcoated so don't fray like other woven materials so it's not used a lot, but I make products out of cotton canvas and use it frequently to overlock the edges where I don't want to have a triple layer of fabric to hide a raw edge or use binding. Sergers are primarily used in garment construction as a way to reduce seam bulk, check out the inside of your jeans and you will see how often it's used. If you were doing a lot of residential upholstery with coarse woven material which is not back coated then a serger may be quite useful but I tend to only use it for cotton canvas.

just in the last few days i removed a seat cover from a 90s Toyota Celica and the foam is overlocked to the leather no glue at all

I have seen factories use them like Nigel said but I have never needed one in all my years of sewing. I purchased one cheep form a shop that was closing up as a package deal. No idea how to use it but maybe it will be useful in the future.

Don't have any experiences with industrial serger but i've been using this Brother 2340CV serger for several years and love this machine. I had tried to use a "serger stitch" from my regular sewing machine, but it took forever, and I had to do all sorts of adaptions to make it work. These machines just hems, but oh, how much time I save and how easy it is; it is amazing!