REX RX-518 All Metal Construction Portable Professional Grade Desktop Blindstitch, Cuffs, Failling Slack Bottoms, Hemming Dresses, Skirt and Coat Bottoms, Draperies, Negligees, Undergarments, Lapel Padding, Blouses Sleeves Machine, Gray

All metal construction and it shows — solid, sturdy, and built to last. There's a bit of a learning curve getting the settings dialed in, but once you do it produces clean, nearly invisible hems every time. Take your time with the setup and adjustments and this machine will reward you. Not a beginner machine, but in the right hands it's a serious workhorse. Well worth the investment.

I love Rex RX-518 . It's working good but I need to practice a little bit more. I have to attach the machine to the table to keep it sturdy. Very fast and easy if the garment irons before doing blind stitches (for beginners like me). Good price and good condition and strong build.

My wife and I were hesitant to purchase this unit because of some of the negative reviews. However, we decided to take a chance anyway. She has over 30 years' sewing experience (both industrial and home sewing), and I have about the same time working in IT. We figured that we could get the thing going between the two of us. What follows are some of the issues we encountered getting the RX-518 to work, and how we overcame them: 1. The manual is terrible! This machine came with the worst manual that I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and immediately throw the manual away before setting up the machine--it'll save you at least an hour's worth of frustration if you do. Watch a few YouTube videos on setting up the machine instead; they'll have you running in just a few minutes. I still rated the RX-515 a solid 5 stars, even though the supplied manual is horrendous, because the machine works so darned well once you get it running! 2. I can't get the machine to do straight stitches! Although this is a small machine, it is industrial-grade, designed to provide thousands of trouble-free hours of service. However, the machine will NOT work correctly if there is anything wrong with how it's threaded. The thread must run precisely along the intended path, with no tangles or twists. It has to go through the tension discs correctly, and be routed UNDER the needle. There are some excellent YouTube videos that can show you how to properly thread the machine. It is essential that you get this right! At first, my wife was having problems getting the machine to work right. She thought she had the machine threaded right. For a moment, I was afraid we were going to have to return it. Then she noticed that the thread had worked its way under the cone on the supply reel. She fixed that problem and the machine has run flawlessly ever since. You also have to use the right kind of thread on the machine. The RX-518 only uses "blind-stitch" thread. Most regular sewing thread is too thick, and will not properly feed through the machine. Most serger threads are thin enough to feed properly, but might not be strong enough for blind stitches. Just save yourself a lot of grief, and exclusively use blind stitch thread on your blind-hemmer. That's about all there is to getting the RX-518 up and running. Some people might complain that this is a lot of hassle, but trust me: you won't complain once you see this machine in operation. It can blast out two-feet of perfect blind-stitches in just a couple of seconds. You'll be doing hemming tasks that used to take hours of hand-sewing in just a couple of minutes, and the stitches be flawless. Trust me: you WON'T regret buying the RX-518 Blind Stitch Machine!

To begin: The machine itself was incredibly greasy right out of the box. I almost dropped it. It was just COVERED in oil, and there was even a little puddle of oil in the bottom of the bag that the machine itself was packed in. Pretty gross. Came off fine with a rag with rubbing alcohol. Threading it was pretty tough. There's this little wheel you have to get the thread around and it wasn't easy to thread that in. Otherwise setup was easy. Now... using it. This thing has 1 speed, and it's warp 9. And that's just not nice to use. I have curves to go around, I have small areas... I don't need to go 100000 miles an hour. Overall, it wasn't nice to use. It's almost as if it couldn't handle its own speed... It took me 30 minutes to do a 9" section of the hem I was finishing because I had to keep ripping the seem. The thread gets caught on the little feed dog foot that pulls your fabric through, and then the whole thing borks up. The little fork also will catch on random threads, pull them up, and then the feed dog gets caught on those, too. "Oh, maybe you misconfigured something, you should go read the table of contents for issues" you might say. Good idea. Maybe it's covered under the issue "Change prizes while the unequal" or possibly "Measure for should send badly". Anyway. The troubleshooting wasn't useful. I messed with the tension, nothing seemed to work. After about 2 hours of trying to get around this hem, the machine started to smoke. Hence the headline. Never did finish my hem. The sections it did correctly looked great, and it was fast and seemed like a time saver. But I guess I'll go back to hand slip stitching my hems. At least I won't be enraged while I do it, and I probably won't threaten to burst into flames. 0/5 if I could.

Great quality Enjoy hemming so much more than on my Brothers Worth the money and time saved

I was worried about this machine at first, I'll be honest. The price seemed too good to be true, and some of the reviews worried me, but I sprang for it anyway because I needed it to hem skirts for some customers within a few days. I worked as a seamstress at an alterations shop for police officers, and the blind hemmer that I used in that store was over a thousand dollars, but it worked flawlessly. This blind hemmer works almost as well for a fraction of the price, and I am very happy with it. First of all, ignore the reviews about it being difficult to assemble. I agree with other peoples' advice to just chuck the instructions, though, because just look at how the pieces fit together will get you much farther. Me, with my experience with sewing machines, and my husband, with his knowledge of all things engineering, put it together within ten minutes. But I feel like most anyone could manage it if they know anything about sewing machines. I will say that this machine takes a bit to break in. It was incredibly stiff out of the box, and the needle was very difficult to move when it was in the fabric. The motor felt like it was struggling whenever I pressed the pedal, and I had to manually move the needle out of the fabric before the motor finally got it working, and then it would sew fine. I was worried I'd have to return it, but I decided to try fixing it first. I oiled it using the little holes as well as opening up the plastic side plate and actually oiling the moving parts that control the needle and fork. I'd add a little oil, run the machine for a few seconds to get the oil in there, and then move on to the next joint in the mechanical "arm". After doing this, it works almost perfectly. I will say that the machine still doesn't particularly like starting up with the needle still stuck in the fabric, but it is MUCH better than it was. It's a new machine, so all it needs is more breaking in and I'll bet it'll run just as smoothly as the one from my job did. The stitches are nearly perfect, and I very much enjoy using it now. In addition, the machine is very easy to control and guide despite how fast it sews, at least for me. I hardly ever miss the seam I'm stitching. (Speaking of which, for all those who are new to using this machine, look up a video on how to take out the blind hemmer chain stitch easily. There's a simple method that lets you pull out a seam in seconds with the thread intact. Makes mistakes much less scary!) Other reviewers have complained about the machine oil smell. Yes, it does smell every time I use it, but not anywhere near badly enough that I'm worried. And good grief, if your machine is smoking I heartily congratulate you on your incredible feat of somehow oiling the motor. Or possibly running the machine for an hour straight with no breaks? To clarify, don't do either. Would not recommend.

This is a little giant the blind stitches just as good as the gigantic piece of furniture of the blind stitch machine I threaded it in 5 minutes and was ready to go it saves a lot of time. Thank you, Rex

This Rex blind-hemmer is everything I needed. Small and portable, it does a fantastic job on light to heavier fabrics. I use it mainly for hemming lined draperies, and it does a fantastic job. East to adjust and to thread. Looks great, giving a professional finish to my home decorating projects.