Is walking foot necessary?

[oleman]

I have an old American Built Singer 401A, from about 1959.
Probably built as a high end home machine. It is an analog cam driven multi-stitch machine. Its best feature is it is totally gear driven with the drive motor mounted inside the cast aluminum body, just whines a little as it sews. It has a slant needle, needle comes toward the operator at about 20 degrees. There is nothing on this machine that is plastic except the little stem that holes a small spool of thread. There were many attachments from Singer and the after market for this machine, AND still available on ebay where I got it, including a walking foot adapter that I have not tried because it does not appear to be need for the sewing I have done.
I have sewed anything you can think of other than shoe soles with it. So long as it can be sewed with a #18 needle and 70 thread, the largest size that I have been able to get to feed properly. I have not tried the life-time threads because of their cost and have not determined the need.
I got a basting adapter from Sailrite and use their threads and basting tape. Also look at many of their "how-toos". Beware that the basting tape only works well with the "worsted" thread that Sailrite sells. I tried cheap thread from ebay and the machine would jam-up after a dozen stitches when sewing the double sided tape.
My next project is a cover made from Sunbrella in pacific blue takes 6 yds of 46". Looks so good I almost hate to carve it up.
The only fault I find with the Singer 401A home type machine is the small bobbin size.
You can get large spools of #70 but the bobbin will only sew about 15' in Sunbrella.
I did break the machine about 6 mths ago, I overfed the material and caused the needle to miss the needle hole in the bottom plate, my fault, repair parts were available from several venders on ebay. I basically overhauled the bobbin drive assembly and foot-feed for about $30.
If money was no object I would still own and use this old Singer.