Why NOT buy a Sailrite Sewing Machine?

[JMHawkins]

I own one (LSZ-1). I've only used it for canvas work (that is, sunbrella) and not sails, but I really like it and it was a dramatic improvment over using my wife's Bernina (I kept breaking the Bernina, and figured that a couple more repair bills and I'd have paid for the LSZ anyway).

The bad - it seems really easy to get out of tune with the thread tension. Now, I have to qualify that comment with "it might be operator error." I'm no pro (at least not yet). But that's the biggest challenge I have. Once I get the thread tension right, I make great progress and feel very happy about the result. On my sail cover - you can pretty much see where I switched over from the Bernina to the Sailrite