The Ultrafeed^® Journey

Sailrite owner and Vice President Matt Grant has played a key role in developing the Ultrafeed Sewing Machines since the very beginning.

In fact, the Ultrafeed was originally Matt’s idea and is the result of years of hard work and dedication. As the creator of the original Ultrafeed Sewing Machines, Matt knows these machines better than anyone — he even holds patents on the design! He knows that the Ultrafeed is a unique machine that offers something no other machine can.

“The Ultrafeed is the best portable, heavy-duty sewing machine in the industry. These are strong words for anyone to say, but I feel strongly enough that this is true of Sailrite’s Ultrafeed line I will risk my reputation,” Matt said. To prove his assertion, Matt is sharing the history of the Ultrafeed so you, too, can see how it has evolved into the powerhouse machine it is today.

The First Machine

Sailrite^® Sailmaker

Matt’s dad, Jim Grant, founded Sailrite in 1969. Back then, the young business sold supplies and instructions for sewing sails and canvas. They even sold a few different sewing machine models here and there.

As Jim grew more familiar with sewing machines, he realized that there weren’t good choices for affordable, amateur sailmaking sewing machines on the market.

Sailmaking, as you might expect, requires a heavy-duty sewing machine. An amateur sailmaker’s sewing machine would need to have the capability to sew in a zigzag stitch and to handle heavy materials. Plus, it would need to feed fabric easily, have at least a 5mm stitch length and be portable.

“The Read’s Sailmaker, imported from England, came close [to a sailmaker machine] but still left room for improvement,” Matt said.

“It had a short, 4mm stitch length, it wasn’t powerful enough and it did not feed heavy fabric much better than most home sewing machines.”

“The Read’s Sailmaker, imported from England, came close [to a sailmaker machine] but still left room for improvement,” Matt said.

Jim decided that the best way to get an appropriate machine to sell to his sailmaking customers was to modify an existing sewing machine and “beef it up,” as Matt put it. He found a 3/4-size arm length industrial sewing machine that was sold to tailors, the Brother^® TZB651, and increased its power by adding a larger-diameter balance wheel with an idler pulley and a two-belt drive system. The result was the Sailrite Sailmaker Sewing Machine.

“This beefed-up Brother became the most well-known and respected portable zigzag sewing machine for sail and canvasworkers. It had a 5mm stitch length, and since the feed dog design width was 12mm instead of the standard 5mm home setup, it fed material better than the Read’s,” Matt said.

“The Sailrite Sailmaker and the Read’s machine competed against one another for many years. Then in 1987, Practical Sailor magazine did a product comparison that favored Sailrite’s machine. After that it was not long before the Read’s machines disappeared.”

Seeking Affordability

Sailrite^® Yachtsman

While in college in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Matt was working at the family business and found himself tuning and shipping almost all the sewing machine orders.

“[During this time] what I learned was that sewing machines can be fickle to tune consistently to get equal performance from one unit to the next,” Matt said. “It took me years to hone my skills to the point that I could tune and properly add Jim’s modifications with great consistency.”

Sailrite was buying sewing machines directly from Brother International and had no control over improvements or manufacturing.

It was also around this time that Matt started to recognize that the $1,999 price tag on the Sailmaker was too expensive for many boaters wanting to repair and make their own canvas items and sails. He wondered how many sailors would be interested in sewing if the price of the machine were lower.

“I wrote a college paper on the subject and convinced myself that I could come up with a less expensive model to supplement the Sailrite Sailmaker model,” Matt shared. “I had theorized that a price point of $499 would increase the market by 500 units annually.”

Despite the trade-offs, the Yachtsman was a huge hit and the company accomplished Matt’s original goal of selling 500 machines in a year.

Fully sold on the idea of a more affordable sewing machine, Matt set out to bring his vision to life. He decided to start with the same approach his dad had successfully used years earlier: building up an existing sewing machine. He took the power improvements from the Sailmaker and added them to a new machine.

The result was the Yachtsman Sewing Machine, which was, in many ways, an improved and more affordable version of the Read’s Sewing Machine. It was based on the “Model T” of home sewing machine castings and, although the price was lower, a few of the desirable Sailrite Sailmaker features were lost.

“The machine had a short, 4mm stitch and it did not feed very well,” Matt explained. “But we did take the power modifications from the Sailmaker and utilized our tuning experience to optimize performance. It also had the required zigzag stitch.”

Despite the trade-offs, the Yachtsman was a huge hit and the company accomplished Matt’s original goal of selling 500 machines in a year.

But it wasn’t long before an old problem appeared again. In refitting other companies’ sewing machines, Matt still had little control over the original manufacturing process. He was tweaking every machine to better suit Sailrite customers’ needs.

“I had to create ad hoc solutions like a special feed dog made with sharp teeth instead of a knurled surface. I increased the power by adding to the weight and diameter of our Monster Balance Wheel,” Matt said.

During this period, Sailrite also experimented with other, larger industrial sewing machines like the Sailrite Long Arm and the SR200. While these sewing machines were more affordable than their Japanese competitors, like the Brother^® TZB652 and the Singer^® 20U, they were designed for tailoring and clothing manufacturing, not sailmaking and canvaswork. Plus, they were too heavy to be easily portable. These machines offered better performance than the Yachtsman but were significantly more expensive, with price tags over $1,000.

“We reached the conclusion that we needed control of the manufacturing process to create machines to serve our niche,” he said.

A New Approach

Sailrite^®/Thompson Mini Walker

Then a sewing machine called the Thompson Mini Walker started popping up.

Matt was familiar with this company and its straight stitch only, portable, walking foot sewing machine. Sailrite customers were asking for comparisons of the Thompson Mini Walker to the Yachtsman. The machines were designed to do different things, and each was better at its suited task. The Yachtsman sewed straight and zigzag stitches for sailmaking, but the Mini Walker was better suited to sewing canvas and upholstery, which were its main markets.

When sewing canvas, the ability to sew in a long stitch length is important because this reduces fabric puckering. The Mini Walker could sew a 6mm straight stitch — 2mm longer than the Yachtsman.

Sailrite was offering more and more support and materials for canvas sewers, and Matt saw opportunity in a potential partnership with Datho, the makers of the Mini Walker.

Datho agreed, and Matt set to work adding his own custom improvements to the machine. He added the Monster Balance Wheel, changed out the motor for improved power and started selling the Sailrite/Thompson Mini Walker.

Creating a Sailrite Original

Sailrite^® Ultrafeed^®

While the Sailrite/Thompson Mini Walker was popular with canvas and upholstery customers, Matt knew that he needed a similar machine that included the zigzag stitch capability to really suit all his customers.

Working closely with his colleague Duane Crisp, Matt set out to solve this problem. “I started calling people and investigating all aspects of walking foot sewing machine designs,” Matt recounted. “The only zigzag machine with a walking foot at the time was a Consew^® 146RB full-sized industrial machine.”

“We learned all that we could about that [Consew 146RB] machine and took what we knew about it and the Mini Walker to create design plans for a zigzag prototype all our own,” he said.

The Consew 146RB, which is still in production today, is a full rotary hook sewing machine. It can be temperamental and is plagued with needle plate breakages. Like the Sailrite Sailmaker, the Consew only produces a 5mm stitch length. Additionally, the Consew machine was too expensive and too heavy for Sailrite customers’ needs. All these reasons combined led Matt to decide that he needed to create a custom sewing machine option.

“We learned all that we could about that machine and took what we knew about it and the Mini Walker to create design plans for a zigzag prototype all our own,” he said.

Matt and Duane worked tirelessly building a machine prototype. They had aluminum parts made that would only last a few hours before bending or breaking just to test their designs.

“This would be the first machine that was truly designed as a portable, heavy-duty sewing machine for sewing sails, canvas and upholstery.”

“It was an arduous process,” Matt admitted.

But in the end, they came up with a design that they knew was ingenious and unique — so much so that Matt and Duane decided to patent their design.

“We decided to patent our invention knowing that the machine fit a market segment that was not contested by anyone other than Sailrite and Thompson,” Matt explained.

“This would be the first machine that was truly designed as a portable, heavy-duty sewing machine for sewing sails, canvas and upholstery.”

And so, on May 5, 2000, Matt officially applied for a patent on his sewing machine design. It was later granted: Patent #6499415.

One of the key selling points of this new machine was the grip and pulling power of the feed dog mechanism. Since the machine would be known for its fabric feeding, the company named it the Ultrafeed. This was the very first version of the Sailrite Ultrafeed that we sell today.

Manufacturing the Ultrafeed

With the design in place and the patent application in, Matt now set out to find a manufacturer for the Ultrafeed. Finally, he was going to have control over the whole process.

The team decided that having “roughly assembled” machines produced overseas and then fine-tuned at Sailrite made the most sense. New to importing goods, Matt worked with an import expert to help with communication and translation for foreign shops. They found a manufacturer in Taiwan and placed their first order. By the time the first shipment of sewing machines came in, Duane had left Sailrite, leaving Matt to carefully tune and finish each machine himself.

“The process was slow, and I soon found that to produce a quality product I would be spending day and night at work,” Matt said. “For a few years I remember dreading Christmas, as I basically lived at work in order to ship machines to arrive on time.”

The Ultrafeed Sewing Machines were booming in popularity and Matt was taking notes and making tweaks to the machines all the time. “For the first time I could log and track issues for correction at the factory,” Matt remembered. “The changes eventually got made and the machine really became a marvel.”

“For the first time I could log and track issues for correction at the factory,” Matt remembered. “The changes eventually got made and the machine really became a marvel.”

Unfortunately, amid all his success, Matt found out some discouraging news. From the very beginning, the factory in Taiwan (which also made the Thompson Mini Walker) had been selling the Ultrafeed Sewing Machine design on the side to other buyers. Those look-alike companies were even trying to continually copy Matt’s improvements.

“The machine looked like it was going to be so successful that look-alike units hit the market before our patent had been completely issued,” Matt explained. “It took a few years for us to figure this out, but the damage was already done.”

The patent had expired on the Thompson Mini Walker, but Matt’s patent on the Ultrafeed was fresh so he decided to take legal action to protect his intellectual property. Sailrite sued and received settlement agreements from several of the major infringers at the time. Over time, many of the remaining look-alike machines failed without intervention, although there are still a few on the market today. In the end, Matt was happy to have won the battle, but the fight took a toll on him.

“The machine looked like it was going to be so successful that look-alike units hit the market before our patent had been completely issued,” Matt explained.

“I felt like the business changed in the process,” he shared. “My focus became more about protecting the Ultrafeed and not about improving it.”

But the legal debacle didn’t keep Matt down for long. A few years later, he was back to concentrating on ways to make the Ultrafeed better.

“We came to grips with the fact that a quality product with great sales potential is going to get copied,” he said. “Sailrite would just have to consistently provide a better product with the best customer service and support.”

A Cut Above the Rest

With the Ultrafeed as its flagship sewing machine, Sailrite started seeing large growth as a business. The Ultrafeed was selling so well that the company discontinued the still well-respected Sailrite Sailmaker.

The Ultrafeed had become both a better and more popular option as it was lighter, more affordable and performed better than the Sailmaker. With Ultrafeed Sewing Machines selling at a quick pace, Matt needed help building and tuning all the machines. He hired and trained a dedicated staff to fine-tune every Ultrafeed at the Sailrite headquarters in Indiana. Today we have a staff of full-time Sewing Machine Technicians assembling, tuning and testing sewing machines.

“Tuning became a Sailrite hallmark and a competitive advantage,” Matt said.

But just because he had found a great sewing machine solution for Sailrite’s customers did not mean that Matt was done innovating. He quickly set to work making the Ultrafeed the best it could be. This effort led Matt to create a variety of custom parts. Sailrite decided to keep manufacturing in the United States for these unique additions.

“Our decision was partially predicated on keeping our ideas from being copied, but it was equally because we cared about jobs in America,” Matt said.

“Tuning became a Sailrite hallmark and a competitive advantage,” Matt said.

Custom parts that are exclusive to the Ultrafeed include:

The Posi-Pin^® Safety Shear (patent #7438009).
The Monster^® II Balance Wheel.
The Power Plus^® Balance Wheel.
Custom carrying cases.
A scarfed hook design.
An oscillating shaft.
Grounded foot controls.
The EZ Set™ Stitch Length Plate.
Special presser foot designs.
And many other internal components.

As the Ultrafeed continued to gain popularity, it developed fans who started sharing their ideas on how to improve the machine. Some of these ideas led Sailrite to make changes, and others led to customers becoming suppliers. For example, a Sailrite customer designed and continues to manufacture the Integrated Thread Stand.

Big Changes Bring Big Improvements

After several years, Matt started noticing quality issues with the machines that were coming out of the Taiwanese factory, so he took a trip to see the facility for himself.

When he got there, Matt was shocked by the lack of consistency in the manufacturing process. The shop had rows of milling machines and drill presses with jigs to shape and bore holes for shafts prior to assembly. The shop employees were taking little care to ensure the holes were spaced correctly so the parts could properly align.

“The [manufacturing] process, though it worked, was highly inefficient and product consistency was suspect,” Matt explained. “Now I understood why some units just did not perform like others and why our reject machine pile had started to grow.”

Matt now had growing concerns not only about his supplier but also about the machine casting. It was showing signs of age, and he was concerned that it wasn’t as strong as it could be. When the Sailrite team invented the Posi-Pin Safety Shear in 2007, it became clear that the existing casting and internal parts were not strong enough to support all the added power.

“With the introduction of the Posi-Pin, a positive clutch rather than the older, slip-prone compression knob, the weak parts in the machine became obvious,” Matt recounted.

Matt tried to get the Taiwanese factory to re-tool its shop and make the necessary changes to his machine, but they were not willing to work with him on these radical improvements.

“The [manufacturing] process, though it worked, was highly inefficient and product consistency was suspect,” Matt explained.

Hitting this dead end, in addition to the fact that his manufacturing partner was still selling look-alike machines, convinced Matt that it was time to look elsewhere for the Ultrafeed’s basic manufacturing.

So, Matt packed up an Ultrafeed and headed to China in search of a new manufacturer. He didn’t speak Chinese and had no real travel plans — just a list of goals and a general idea of how to start his search.

He was looking for a manufacturing partner that he could trust, that wouldn’t sell his machines in backdoor deals to other companies, and that he could work closely with to make improvements. Basically, he needed a shop with a good reputation that wouldn’t cut corners and would produce only quality, industrial parts.

He wanted a shop that made industrial sewing machines so every piece of the Ultrafeed would be built to work hard and last long. The right shop would have automated vertical and horizontal milling machines. This technology ensures consistency in placement and size of the casting borings by drilling them in succession with the machine in only one jig. This, Matt attests, is key to good performance and durability from the machine.

He needed a shop with a good reputation that wouldn't cut corners and would produce only quality, industrial parts.

He also hoped to find one factory that could produce everything from the casting to the all-metal internal parts. In the end, Matt managed to find a manufacturing partner that met all his goals in only three days.

“To this day I really can’t explain how I managed to make the contacts that I did, but the trip turned out to be one of the most productive three days of my business life,” Matt said. “We dropped our old manufacturer and never looked back.”

The changes Matt implemented with this new, higher-quality manufacturer created the Ultrafeed Version 2 Sewing Machine.

In June of 2016, Sailrite made yet another round of improvements to the Ultrafeed and launched the Version 3 machine. The V.3 machines featured three redesigned drive components — the motor bracket, jack drive and motor pulley — as well as improvements to the feed mechanism for better grip and longevity. Perhaps the most noticeable improvement to the V.3 machines was the addition of the new Industrial Carrying Case with silver trim, custom supports inside the lid and a screen-printed logo.

“Today when we hear of a look-alike machine, we know it is either from our old manufacturer or, even worse, a machine cloning agent working to sell on price alone,” Matt shared.

“In both cases, these are completely inferior machines. I know this because I have either worked with the manufacturer or sewn on example machines. I buy anything out there that claims to serve our market just to see if there is anything novel. Nothing yet!”

“Today when we hear of a look-alike machine, we know it is either from our old manufacturer or, even worse, a machine cloning agent working to sell on price alone,” Matt shared.

Thanks to its strength and quality, the Ultrafeed has proven itself capable of not only sailmaking and canvas sewing, but also sewing crafts, heavy denim, soft leather, upholstery and more.

What's Next for the Ultrafeed

At Sailrite, we’re constantly improving the Ultrafeed to better meet our customers’ needs and deliver the best portable, heavy-duty sewing machine on the market. In 2021, we introduced the revolutionary WorkerB^® Power Pack Motor System. With this 1/4 horsepower motor, the Ultrafeed delivers 2.5 times the power of other portable machines.

Why the new motor? To give the Ultrafeed more speed control than ever before. The power-boosting control box maintains control and consistent speed even when sewing through thick assemblies.

“The WorkerB Power Pack brings unrivaled power and control to a portable sewing machine. This setup is truly an industry game-changer. No other portable machine has this amount of power, starting torque and slow speed control,” Matt was excited to share.

To bring this unique motor system to more sewers than ever, we introduced Version 4 of the Ultrafeed in February 2023. Previously, we offered three different package options for V.3 Ultrafeed machines, and only the highest tier included the WorkerB. Now, the WorkerB comes standard with all V.4 Ultrafeed machines.

And the WorkerB update wasn’t the only big change for V.4 Ultrafeed machines. We also revamped how we include helpful accessories and notions with machines. Rather than getting general notions and accessories when you purchase an Ultrafeed, you get to choose from optional accessory packages tailored to different types of sewing.

In addition, V.4 machines have these improvements over V.3 machine packages:

Industrial Carrying Case comes standard.
NEW Posi-Pin Safety Shear.
NEW WorkerB^® Integrated LED Light.
NEW Easy Swap Hinge Set.
Updated nameplate.
Enhanced tool kit with extra cap spring included.
Upgraded internal components that:

Improve driver range for more consistent stitch quality.
Improve feeding in forward and reverse.
Prevent feed cam slippage while sewing heavy, dense materials.
Increase overall operational smoothness.

All these exciting changes are designed to give you a more powerful and user-friendly machine overall, as well as the flexibility to customize your Ultrafeed package to fit your budget and sewing needs. And we’re not stopping there.

With our eyes always on the horizon, we’re looking toward the future and the new innovations we can develop for the Ultrafeed to make your sewing experience even better. We’re excited for what’s to come, and we hope you’ll be part of our journey.

Quality, Performance & Support

The Ultrafeed Difference

When you look back on the story of Sailrite sewing machines and the creation of the Ultrafeed, the aspects that make this machine unique start to jump out.

The Ultrafeed is the result of a drive by Jim and Matt to give Sailrite’s unique customers a sewing machine that would meet all their needs.

There is nothing else like the Ultrafeed because it was developed for a dedicated focus: to meet the needs of sailmakers and canvas sewers. The Ultrafeed’s story is also one of quality. When parts aren’t being made to our high standards, we procure new, better parts.

Our dedication to producing a machine of the highest quality and performance is what led us to hand-tune every sewing machine before it ships out.

Above all, what this story shows is how much we love this product. The Ultrafeed is, and has always been, a labor of love.

It is a product that we stand behind and will fight for. Sailrite so believes in this machine that we provide unparalleled customer service to help you love your Ultrafeed as much as we do.

The Ultrafeed’s story is also one of quality. When parts aren’t being made up to our high standards, we procure new, better parts.

Matt summed up his story this way. “I live and breathe sewing machines,” he said. “It is my knowledge of the Ultrafeed’s history, and those before it, that allows me to claim ‘best in the industry’ without hesitation. My father recognized the need for something special to handle sewing canvas, sails and upholstery in a portable configuration. I helped to carry on with what he started, and my team at Sailrite today is now continuing that tradition.”

The Ultrafeed® Journey