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Thanks everyone. I am definitely twisting it the wrong way. That's good news and makes sense.

Thanks DW. Inkscape is my friend when it comes to drawing things. I'm completely useless with a pen and paper but I can drive a mouse

You are of course right that it doesn't matter which thigh you use to roll the thread. When I wrote that I was thinking in terms of simply mirroring what I do, which is to have the thread attached to the bench on my left and crossing my body to land on my right thigh. I don't know why i do it like that (probably because that's how David showed me and it never occurred to me to do it any other way), but it lets me watch the twist develop more easily and control it a bit with my left hand between rolls.

A leftie could just as well twist it with the bench on their left too, but it wouldn't be as easy to watch or control between rolls as it would if it crossed their body.

I'd be interested to see a picture of an cord with the right amount of twist and one with too much twist. I just sorta do it until it seems right but I've never seen a professional's version of what "right" looks like.

Thanks.

Alasdair,

I have been reading your posts with interest,being a left handed (lefty)shoe maker who was told couldn't learn how to write when i was in first year school,went to learn to write in more than two languages and when the shoe maker who tought me to twist thread said,it is not gonna work, meaning left handed can not make thread, I learned how to do both the wright twist and the left twist,i understand the awkwardness of the left handed making right twist,but they can do it, the left twist is easier for lefties and it will hold. below is an example of a left hand,left thigh rolled down end of thread (after going all round the boot)as a matter of fact it is the ends of the pink boots,6 strands of #8 natural finish linen thread, how a lefty manage to do all of that? well, whenever there is a will there is a way.

Alasdair, Nasser,

As you know...must know by now...I use dacron now for inseaming. It doesn't need twisting the way linen yarn does.

But back when I was buying linen directly from Ireland and making my inseaming threads from linen, I twisted my yarns together on my left thigh with my left hand...and I'm right handed!

I always "tied" the thread to the bench, on my left side, and held the taw loosely in my right hand as I rolled the thread down my left thigh with my left hand.

Holding the taw in my right hand I could prevent the taw from kinking up and could grab the taw firmly to prevent the thread from untwisting when I reached the end of my thigh and the roll.

Eventually I got to the point where I was actually rolling the yarns together on my right hand with the palm of my left hand. It wasn't as quick but I liked the control I had and I avoided waxing up my trousers.

And then I went to dacron...

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

DW,

I didn't have much faith in the dacorn until i saw a sample at the AGM, and was surprise to see that it comes with tapered ends.
The way you explained your thread twisting is very much like the way i twist, Are you sure you are right handed? it is possible to learn to write with both hands and most good soccer players learn to kick with both feet.

Alasdair,

You asked about a cord with right amount of twist or too much twist,well i don't know if you ever broken the tip of your thread(the thin end of thread)when twisted it too much,but the area beyond the taper is full substance and it wouldn't break as easy,but the the thread starts to kink and the tension for the thread to want to untwist increase, either way we have to reduce this tension by smoothing with cloth or leather, your assessment of doing it until it seems right is good enough,i think about 12 twists is the average.

Nasser

I used to twist it pretty tight...not so tight it was kinking but not very short of that, either. I found that it tended to hang up when inseaming--the thread loops on either side of the holdfast would tend to twist up on themselves and almost create a knot. I think I also read somewhere that twisting it too tight makes the thread too hard. I think it is a matter of experience as much as anything. I never counted the number of twists, that's for sure.

I used to skein out 10-12 strands for inseaming, then I'd divide them into bundles of three and wax those bundles separately before twisting them all together. This ensured that the wax would be deep in the heart of the twisted thread. And that's important because pine pitch/rosin based wax is anti-bacterial.

As for dacron, I believe that it is superior to any contemporary linen. The linen we get nowadays is just too short of staple and it has almost always been bleached.

I've told this story a dozen times but it's still instructive...

When I was inseaming with nothing but Barbours linen thread--12 strands of #10, waxed with a handwax comprised of natural pine pitch, pine rosin and beeswax--I made a pair of boots for a fellow who was a farrier (a horseshoer). He tended to sweat like pitcher of lemonade on a hot summer day no matter what the weather. He hadn't had the boots I made for him more than six months when the inseaming stitches started breaking like they were made of paper. I could literally tug on the welt with a thumb and forefinger and pop the stitches one by one. You couldn't break the thread between two human hands when the boots were new, but bacteria and sweat, and moisture and heat had broken down the linen to such a degree the threads were literally rotten.

It's easy to say that the bootmaker did something wrong, and it may be so...too little wax, too tight a twist, not replenishing the wax during inseaming. But bottom line is that dacron is not subject to that kind of deterioration no matter what character flaws the maker possesses.

AND, it is available on the open market and not just as a unique and time limited "find" from antique dealers on Ebay.

But I'm not here to sell anyone on dacron. Time...and the closing of the great Irish linen mills...will do that, if the dearth of long staple linen hasn't already.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

I have been reading some of these posts on bristling, and watching the odd video. It is highly reminiscent of making bow strings with the Flemish twist. Is it possible to make the taw in two strands each of which is laid against a leg of the bristle with wax? In that format they would easily wind up into a balanced rope at the ends or throughout, and anything incorporated in that manner will never come out.

A tool that is used for string making is a special board for laying out string that is tapered at both ends, so that all the ends are easily staggered. Interestingly, before the invention of modern synthetic, Barbour No 10 was the preferred material for bow strings, some folks still use it if they are into natural materials.

Hi Thom,

Interesting you should mention that. I have several kilometres of wet-spun Swedish linen that isn't great for shoe thread but makes nice bowstrings.

If I'm understanding what you are suggesting correctly, the issue I can see with it is that the bristle itself won't twist well and will want to spring straight, which would compromise the whole attachment. The other problem is that the taw is often made up of an odd number of strands.

Do you have thread and bristles to try it? If not and you make a picture explaining what you mean I'll give it a go.

Thanks Alasdair, for responding. I hadn't thought about the stiffness issue, in part because in one post somewhere DW mentioned seeing Mexicans just wind some stuff on like making rope. He said he wasn't too sure how they did it but it inspired his counterwinding approach. (There was an exchange between Tex and DW on different approaches, and DW mentioned the rope making.) I had been musing about possibly using crazy glue, just a single spot weld, I'm always off on a tangent, when all of a sudden the bowstring/ropemaking comparison jumped into my head.

I don't have materials, I tried to get some but the local place is 100% wholesale. What I might do is just muck up some materials just to see what happens. How thick is the taw in final form, in a representative case? I have some 30 or 35 pound maxima for fly fishing. If I can make something up, I could email that to you so you could see what I am doing.

Ok, update. I just did one up. All I had that would work for a trial was some Dacron B50, and some 80 pound shock tippet material. no sticky wax. Turned out the next smallest stuff I had was in the 21 thou range and had a tensile strength of 50 pounds which is about 2.5 times the old stuff. Very difficult to split. Anyway blending Dacron around 80 pound shock tippet should put to rest the stiffness issue. In fact the materials were not wrapped around each other that much in either hank, or any of the fancy stuff I read about, it's tha magic of a counterwound rope that it holds everyting neatly in place.

I split the "bristle" with pliers to flatten the end and then I split that with toenail clippers. It tore about 65/35 so one side was as stiff as a needle. I added no wax to the beeswax on the string. I just twisted it up and there is no way to break the bristle off. It would work fine with dissimilar amounts of material. Once both ends are done they can't unwind it's all locked in. With the wax it would nold anyway, but a rope like this can be untwisted in the kind of use contemplate here, at least I don't think so. Both ends work counter to each other and lock each other together.

Doing the second end requires some changes in method because it's ends are not free to rotate having been already laid, one needs to take a few seconds to put some counterwinds into the body, that will in turn we absorbed when the second bristle is made up.

Never done any part of this before, and this thing is solid. I'm chuffed.

I don't know how to put up a picture, but I will email you one if you like. Keep in mind I just staggered some totally weird materials and made a rope out them. This isn't the real shoemakers stuff, but from the sound of it that should be easier?

When it comes to monofilament the best is, in my opinion, Maxima. But there are other brands that split well, too.

The main thing to understand is that once you get it started, you need to pull the "legs" apart gently and with equal force. If you do that correctly, it will split equally (or near as makes no difference). I honestly think that trying to split a bristle with a nail clipper is gonna end up being so frustrating and time consuming that you'll eventually abandon trying at all.

And while flattening the first half inch or so to allow a person to cut and so begin the split is a fine idea (I don't do it that way...I just 'nick' the mono) flattening it does degrade the monofilament to some extent in my opinion. I would not flatten it all the way. I've seen it sort of fracture and split into several unplanned extra legs when the mono was flattened.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

All I did was flatten the end, then split that part with the nail clipper, not the whole length! Any junk was trimed off. I guess I could have been clearer. It was quick an easy for my first time. I don't think my stash of mono was that good. The "new stuff", is all those little spools of expensive tippet and leader making material that I replaced the Maxima with. Rio, and Orvis etc... One of these said "replace after 2000" I have maxima from the 70s. Do you think it might be worth something on ebay?

I split the Orvis high test 21 thou stuff with the clippers. Works great though I think a knife might be easier to center, just working with the stuff I have indoors.

There is a problem with my rope technique. It is not tightly packed at the end and will gather up when I pull it through leather. I was trying to sew some material that was punched very near the diameter of the nylon, a stiff test. I don't think this is a problem. I just need to get the real materials and start the bending on as described with over-wraps so the end is firmer, then break into the rope tie for ease of manufacture and good reserve strength. Or who knows, just copy a proven techique. For now I am free to play, I don't have my books yet, materials, or a project.

ThomD
Are you dampening your leather? It lets the bristle slide thru a bit and allows for the leather to be colosed up to the stitching with a light tap of a hammer.
Regards
Brendan

It was a piece of hard dry leather, but it wasn't a real trial. I am still a few weeks or longer away from getting together the stuff I need to try this for real. I will keep your valuable advice in mind Brendan.

Nylon Monofilament

I was getting Maxima brand from Cabela's. Somehow, I guess I wasn't paying very good attention, I got Florocarbon last time, instead of Nylon. It's not so good. In fact, it's been a big waste of time. I could get the split started well, but it frayed and broke.

Now I don't know which Cabela product would replace the Maxima Nylon.

Any suggestions?
I've got two pair to inseam.
Cabela's is open tomorrow down in Phoenix. It would be worth the trip.

Help would be appreciated.

TIA,
Paul

Paul,

Use the florocarbon. Just make a very careful and well tapered taw and over-wrap it very deliberately, closely and tightly.

I have to be honest...as a strong advocate and aficionado of the split bristle technique, in the last couple of years I have gone back to over-wrapping. If the taw is good and the wrapping tight, it is probably close to the split-bristle technique--it's at least sufficient for the purpose--and much quicker.

I guess that started when I went to making up two, three, and four cord threads for welt sewing or round closing..esp. round closing. It's pretty hard to split mono that is thin enough in diameter (15 lb. ?) to work with a two cord Teklon.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Out of the 10 bristles I cut, I only got 4 good enough to use.

This Florocarbon Mono frayed and separated and broke off of the bristle.

I struggeled with a couple of pair of inseams using this stuff in August, and then was off of the bench for the last two months with my hip surgery. I wonder about it going bad?
It hasn't been especially low humidity, like it can be in the Spring.

I quess tomorrow I'll be making the trip to Phoenix to buy another spool, and see what I get. It took a whole week to get here the last time I ordered some by phone.

Thanks,
Paul

Paul,

Forgive me if I failed to make myself clear.

Don't try to split the florocarbon bristles, just wrap them.

It's always good to know/master several ways of doing the same thing. Just like when it got so hard to find decent boars bristles we all started using monofiliment. Why discard the florocarbon mono if it will work and do the same job without splitting?

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Paul:

Like DW, I don't split the bristle, just wrap it. A couple of things I do -- first, use some sandpaper on the portion of the bristle which you will be wrapping. Second, I use some needle nose pliers to 'crimp'/give texture to the same portion of the mono that I'm going to wrap. I find the combination of these two treatments increases the amount and strength of adherence of the wax to the mono, and hence the thread to the mono.

Also, as DW wrote, the first say 1" of the wrapping needs to be nice and tight.

Lance

Seems like you guys are splitting hairs

SO, I fell asleep remembering that there was a discussion on "wrapping" the taw. Thanks guys for brining it up again.

Now after spending some time in the archives, it seems like the "wrapping" method mentioned is the one described in post #291 from April 6, 2007. Is that correct?

It seems kind of strange the way the wrap starts: with the taw pointing right, toward the sanded/waxed/crimped end of the bristle. Wrapping over itself about 1/2" and laying tight up close together until the full thickness of the thread is reached and then the remaining about 2" end of the bristle, passing through two splits in the thread.

Is that it in a nutshell?

I should have been practicing this method against this inevitability with nylon. But I'm always one for the dramatic.

Thanks for the help,
Paul

Here's my first go at the method.

Critisism apprecitated.

On first look at this, I like that the bristle is wrapped, and not vise versa. It seems that the grip on the bristle would be enhanced with the pressure of the thread going through the hole.

I did sand, wax and crimp the wound end of the bristle. It feels like it should work well. And the first inch of "wrap back" is as tight as I could get it on first try. But as I said, this is the wierd part to me.

I'm goin' in. Wish me luck.
I'll give this one a go and report back, before I go after the other four.

Thanks again,
Paul

Paul,

You've got the right idea all the way. The first inch or so...maybe inch and a half depending on how fine the taw is...should be wrapped tight around and extremely close together without overlap. After that the wraps can open up a bit.

Beware of lumps especially at the bristle end. These will cause problems--the trick is to get a smooth taper from the diameter of the bristle to the full thickness of the thread.

In your second photo the wraps on the lower bristle look real good but the lump at the beginning on the top bristle scares me a bit. Sometimes it will work out...sometimes not so much.

I wish you all the luck.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Thanks for the wish of luck. It worked!

As a matter of fact, the ends entered and exited the hole easier than ever.



The looseness at the toe you see is the one spot of trouble. It was a knot. I learned what you were worried about. But I think I can fix it with a hammer!
I couldn't unknot it, and it was close to the vamp, I thought I could deal with it. Not so good really.

But the real point is that the wrap stayed on.

Thanks for the encouragement. Now I have an alternative.

Paul

I just received from Macphersons my 4 ounce spool of Barbors #10 single strand unwaxed unbleached linen. $18.

I followed DW's directions in his book for measuring off the 8 strands at one time and frayed the edges with the slow motion backwards karate chop. So cool!

I purchased the boars bristles from Francis Classe along with her white synthetic sticky wax.

Geri

I staggered my ends to create the taw. I previously thought that I would be scraping threads to do that. Confusion sets in when you read about too many options at once before you can do something hands on.

I anchored my thread at midpoint. I properly waxed the threads. I set the twist and burnished the thread. I thoroughly enjoyed the process and I loved getting my pants waxy. It took me 2 hours to complete this simple task while reading and rereading the directions. I settled in on the method describing how to wrap each leg of the bristle and then counter wrapping the other leg. It took me a few trys to understand that counter wrapping means to go the other way. The first two attempts resulted in the bristle simply pulling out. I am not sure what I did wrong so I just started over . My persistence paid off and I now have two beautiful waxed ends properly attached to my little piggy bristles and I am so happy about that.

I feel like part of the mystery has been solved.

Any comments about the synthetic wax vs the more traditional coad wax?
Geri

Geri,

I was always taught that petro-chemical based substances would rot organic materials--leather...as in the case of synthetic neatsfoots oil;thread as in the case of coal tar derivatives in hand wax. This last is a point that Al was alluding to in a recent thread.

That said, many makers do use p/c based waxes--the wax in hot melt stitcher thread is synthetic (or so I've been told). And just to add insult to injury, my old teacher ended up in the waning years of his career using asphalt roofing tar. Go figure.

All that said, if you're gonna use linen of hemp...and go to all that trouble...I would rather be safe than sorry and I'd recommend sticking to rosin and pitched based waxes.

PS...the wrap and counter-wrap method is remarkably secure and strong if done correctly but it is not always easy to master. Good on you!

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

OK... So now reading through the archives I have seen many many recipes on coad. So many that my head is spinning.

I have the bees wax.
I just placed an order for the bull riders amber rosin.
There seems to be a past debate about the availability of the "PITCH".

Any one have a good source for pitch?

Also DW, you mentioned in a long ago posting that you switched from linen thread to Dacron when a customers boot inseam deteriorated from his sweat rotting the linen thread. I was wondering if this was a completely isolated case? Could there possibly have been something else that attributed to the deterioration of the thread that he possibly did not tell you or think to tell you.

Maybe he dried his shoes in front of a camp fire...melting off the protective wax....or waddled through a swampy cow pasture. Or doused them in muratic acid or oxalic acid in the process of doing some other cowboy task.

Even so, I guess that you would need the boot to stand up and not rot.

Geri

Geri,

Yes, pitch is another one of those hard to get...and rapidly disappearing...items that were so vital to shoemaking.

As for the story of the customer's deteriorated inseam...it was an isolated incident that I've never had repeated and I thought, at the time, it was simply because of the heat and sweat that the customer--a farrier--was subjected to. Looking back I am not so sure that I was not using the coal tar based wax that Al and I were talking about--Vesta Pech. Hard to know...I still have more than a couple of balls of it and I use it sparingly in my made up coad.

That said I do use dacron almost exclusively for inseaming...as much because I don't care for the the short staple of modern linen yarns as because linen yarn is hard to get and since it is susceptible to rotting (it's organic, let's not forget) offers no significant advantage over the dacron.

And when I switched to dacron, I stopped worrying about whether the coad was synthetic or not...although I love the Swedish pitch and the coad that results from it more than any other I've used.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

I found something on line called Burgandy Pitch from a website called scents of the earth. Can anyone tell me if that is the wrong kind of pitch? Is it the resin or sap from a spruce tree.

And I just broke my first awl practicing inseaming with my newly bristled waxed ends.

And then I caught a little tiny bump in my thread on the fifth hole and lost my bristle. Its not as easy as it looks. But the first few stitches were really a thrill. Back to twisting up new threads. I will try to keep these cleaner as I think that I dragged them on the floor a bit and picked up some un-needed bumps.

Dick, give me a call. I need a new awl.

Geri

Geri,

Good on you, getting the first one right is a great feeling. It's still a "yay!" moment for me when I lay up my threads and the tapers match at both ends I'm very used to having to fine-tune the length of some of the strands at one end to make an even taw but it's getting better with practice.

I can't remember how many seams I did before I got one where I managed to sew the whole thing without losing a bristle or breaking a thread (I'm mostly using 60+ year old hemp that's a bit past it), but persevere and you'll get there.

I braid my bristles on the way David Kilgour showed me a few years ago. It's a simple three-leg plait with one leg being the taw and the other two the bristle. There's a video of how I do it here: http://wherearetheelves.net/tag/video/

I haven't found Burgundy Pitch that was anything other than cooked-up petrochemicals. What I did do though was get some liquid stockholm tar which is used by tree surgeons to seal cuts in trees, and by equestrians as hoof dressing, and boil off the volatiles until I had something black and reasonably solid. It's comparatively cheap and wholly pine-derived. Rendering it is a *very* *very* messy, stinky, and horribly flammable process though.

The smoke at the end stages is great clouds of noxious thick yellow stuff that will precipitate out as tarry goo on whatever it touches. I might do this again sometime if I can find a big outdoor area well away from anything important. If I do, I'll render several litres though so as to never have to do it again!

In my quest to make Coade for my new bristled wax linen ends I have found a source for the rosin. I am using bullrides rosin. It looks as it should be. But I may have made an error in my search for Pitch. I did order from Gotgrit and I have an email into them this morning to see if this is correct or if I just got turned around and ordered wrong. Is this what pitch should look like. Unless it melts and becomes entirely different, I would think that it would act as an abrasive addition to the coade.

Geri

Never seen it in that form. That doesn't mean it won't work--it might have been manufactured to melt more easily and quickly. [Pitch is commonly used when engraving silver and so forth. The piece is embedded in the pitch by melting the surface of the pitch. But, if I recall correctly, a relatively large amount is melted into a reservoir.]

It also looks as if there is no residual turpentine in this product at all. I used to get "medium" from Rausch Naval yards and, while brittle initially, if a lump were left on the table for any length of time it would sag into a puddle.

That said, I'd call them and ask if it is pure pitch. And if you can send it back.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Dw,

I talked with Tom at GotGrit and he said that this is not pitch, it is grit. I guess that I need to find a litho stone to grind.

Geri

Well, what do you want grit for? It's not an ingredient in handwax...and you wouldn't want to put it in there even if it were milled fine as flour.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

DW,

You are correct. I do not want any grit in my coade. There was a mistake made in either ordering it or in shipping it. The important thing is that I did not mix in in with my hot rosin and wax yet.

Geri

Geraldine,
the pitch you are looking for is the rest procuct of pine tar made of old pine stumps and is mostly called pine tar pitch or burgundy pitch. However, it is a problem to find it these days becasue most tar of today is oil based.

But pitch could be made oil based with good result even though you will not get the old tar smell and instead of a bronze coloured tread you get a black tread. I think it should't be a problem to find it within the US.

Janne

Hi Geri,

I haven't yet had any success making code from the Gugolz pitch from gotgrit. I've tried several iterations and can't get it hard enough.

I'm still using a mix of rosin and beeswax with good success. I get good thread lock and it holds bristles well.

I learned how from this forum and put a guide on my blog that attempts to distill what I learned. You can see it here:
http://wherearetheelves.net/making-code/

Alasdair,

Thank you for your response and I did check out your website. You have documented the procedure quite well.

I believe that I ordered the grit on the gotgrit website by mistake. Simply by selecting the wrong item. But Tom did contact me from Gotgrit.com and here was his response. Since you seem to be the one who did all of the tests on the pitch mixture, let me know what you think.

"I can get #82 which is harder, also you can make Gugolz pitch harder by "cooking it" longer.
Heating to just below a boil.

It is made from tree sap and comes from Sweden.

The number is the boiling point in degrees C, so #82 boils at 180F

So you may be able to bake it at 180F for 45 mins and harden it up.

I am not sure what else gets mixed with it, but I know turpentine, linseed oil
and other products like that do soften up the pitch, maybe just use less of them.

tom