Singer 4423 Heavy Duty Review

Marketed as Heavy Duty, this robust sewing machine advertises a metal interior frame, stainless steel bed plate, and a stronger motor. The Singer 4423 doesn't come close to the strength and power of an industrial machine, but it did make it through the heavier fabrics we tested with ease.

Sewing

The first stitch that we tested on this machine, the long straight stitch, was plagued by persistent tension issues across our range of test fabrics. It wavered from too loose to so tight that the bobbin thread was pulled through.

The 4423's zigzag stitch was fine, with higher quality and consistency on the easier to sew fabrics, and dropped on the more difficult ones — like satin.

It seemed to struggle a little with the scallop stitches, producing ones that were slightly subpar. It did an acceptable job at attaching the zipper, with no bunches or aberrant stitches around the end stop of the zipper, a problem other machines seemed to have.

Ease of Use

Every feature on this machine is very clearly labeled, except the stitch selection. The stitch selection wheel has pairs of stitches, one in blue and one in red, with a separate knob that selects between the blue and the red stitches. While simple, this method is not immediately apparent, and briefly stymied us when we first went to use the machine.

This machine does not have any recommendations for which presser foot to use with each stitch, making it a little more intimidating for beginners. This machine does have a decent work light, enough where you could get away without supplemental lighting. The 4423 does lack automatic sewing, and consistent needle stopping position — something to be expected on such a basic mechanical sewing machine.

Ease of Setup

The 4423 is a basic machine, and is about average to set up. While the threading directions on this machine are similar to others, it has a much darker body, making the instructions higher contrast and easier to read. This is especially true of threading the bobbin cover, where it is possible to actually see the directions compared to other machines.

The needle threader works well on this model, but it requires a decent amount of dexterity to operate, and it may occasionally feel like it was designed for someone with an extra hand.

Button Work

The Singer 4423 struggled a little when it came to making buttonholes, lacking some of the nicer features that other computerized machines offered. This machine does not stop automatically when sewing a buttonhole, requiring a little more care and attention than some of the other machines to not ball up the thread at the end.

We also noticed that this buttonhole does not seem to lock as well as the other ones, and was more prone to unraveling, and it was substantially more difficult to line up the buttonhole in the correct spot.

Value

While this model is lower on the price axis, it is also low on the performance one. This fails to fulfill our criteria for making it a good value.

Conclusion

The Singer 4423 is an economical, basic mechanical sewing machine. While there were no terrible drawbacks on this product, you get what you pay for, and the performance of this model fails to impress. We feel that there were other models that offered much better performance for only slightly more cost, and are worth saving up the extra penny.