Thread

[otherVolken]

JPM, "Does anyone have any experience with Swiss linen?"

Are you talking of some olive greenish thread also called army green? If that is the case, it is a thread used for the uniforms, that where made of a grey-greenish felt, but never used on shoes.

it wouldn't be a surprise to find such thread in a shoe makers shop, since all trades producing army equipment where supplied by more or less the same suppliers.

The thread is quite strong, but if it is old, (and it would have to be if it is the army issued one) it rips or makes knots quite easy. Waxing can help there.

OtherV

[D.A. Saguto--HCC]

Rusty,

"Spare elves" I'm afraid are a thing of the past. We're down one "elf" ourselves as of Jan., so I'm having Miriam make some fancy little designer suits [those retro, black polyester bell bottoms, and 70s disco suede jackets], to leave out at night with a glass of single malt in the hope to recruit a new one in time for the Spring onslaught.

[norwegian]

To OtherV and all!
About Swiss linen. The label says Shoemakers Thread. The color is bright green, so I have my doubts about the army angel. I checked it today and it looks quite healthy. Long fibers, too. Have anyone of you heard about this, used it recently, or in the past? In case, do you know if this quality is available today?
Any comments will be highly appreciated!

Until next time
JPM

[Duncan McHarg]

G'day Al & all,
You can solve the problem (largely) of hairy threads by taking Paul Hasluck's advice from his 1904 book on saddlery.I used to spend ages de-fluffing my threads so they wouldn't bind up in the holes whilst pulling through, but since adopting the following method,'Nah Worries'.

Lay up all your strands (parallel).Wax the ends and ,holding both, place the middle over a nail, table leg,etc.Put the twist into both halves. I then wrap one end around my index finger and the other around my little.Take a smooth round awl and wrap one half of the thread once around it. Run the awl briskly back and forth along the thread and you will see most of the fluff and stray hairs get plucked off leaving a smoother thread and a ball of fluff on the awl. Do the same for the other half and the part around the nail(I think a slim table leg puts less strain on it).

Now wax the thread and rub through some cloth.

The end result is a lovely smooth,even thread that goes through the holes far better. The diff. between waxing before and after twisting is that it's harder to get the wax to soak as deep into the twisted. Just a little upkeep now and then whilst sewing.

Cheers Duncan.

[dw]

Duncan,

Good to hear from you again! I wondered where you'd gone.

I only ran across the "hairy" linen/hemp just as I was making the transition to the dacron/polyester. I had the same problem as you did--knots and schlubs being raised in the thread by the wax. And very resinous wax only compounds the problem.

But, as you have observed, twisting it harder makes it very difficult to get the wax to penetrate to the heart of the thread--which is the vital key to keeping the linen from rotting. Most of our traditional wax recipes, are based on pine rosin or pine pitch. Pine pitch is somewhat antiseptic--something the elder scions of the Trade must have realized...or maybe not. Maybe it was just serendipity. But pine pitch is used extensively in the veterinary business to treat open sores and wounds on large animals such as horses. The pitch keeps the voracious little microbes that live in the jungle of your boot from eating the linen--which is like a chocolate truffle to them, especially after a steady diet of skin-flake gruel.

That was always my objection to the hard twisted stuff from Barbours, too. Even when I waxed and burnished each strand individually, and then twisted, rewaxed and reburnished the whole ten strands together, I'd see the "white" showing through as I stitched my inseam.

But to come back to the "hairy" stuff, I was getting some "hemp" from Germany (Gruzwitch Superior) that was plenty fuzzy. I was told--and I even tried it once, with, as I recall, satisfactory results--that if you wet down the individual strands and twist the thread while it is wet that most of the "hairiness" can be eliminated. Of course this gets us back to hard twisted yarn but perhaps not as hard as commercial stuff.

Tight Stitches...
DWFII--Member HCC

[D.A. Saguto--HCC]

Duncan,

Great advice. The old hook or nail on the wall trick, and waxing the strands of thread in a bunch before, as well as after twisting them together, then rubbing hard does generally improve the finish and workability by burnishing and melting the wax in. And yes, periodic re-waxing while sewing is a must to supply the constant drain of wax lost during pulling-through. The solidity of the seam is largely dependent on how much thread and wax is in the work, and pulling-in firmly. Too few stitches per inch, with a wax-starved "dry" thread, results in a weak seam. Let me find out exactly why my elves don't like the current hard gray thread, and I'll get back to ya'all.

The only complaint I have so far about it, is that it takes 9 strands of the new no.10 to equal the strength of 7 strands of the old no.10--IOW, it breaks when pulling-in a stitch every once in a while, but I think that's just the short-staple problem. The old Barbour-Campbell no.10 hand thread, from the late 1980s, didn't break in use, but we did have some problems with the inseams prematurely rotting-out. It was the weirdest thing, the inseam on the lateral side of the shoe--roughly from the little toe forward to maybe the side of the very toe of the shoe, would just let go after maybe three years. It didn't fail under the ball, or anywhere you'd expect it to from constant flexing or pressure, but up on the outside of the toe. One elf used to have his inseams fail prematurely on the inside waist of all places. More strands and more wax seems to have corrected it, but at this rate eventually we'll wind up with sewing threads the size of packing twine--not very nice for a light-medium weight welted shoe.

[D.A. Saguto--HCC]

DW,

One of the "dead guys"--Golding?--talks about laying-up your threads the night before. Skeining them up, wetting them, then twisting and hanging them on a nail overnight to dry. How they don't untwist is a mystery, and I've never tried it myself. But, one thing you must have noticed, wax won't adhere well to a wet thread, which if you've ever skeined one up in a hurry, and had one taw inadvertently flop into the shop tub, you're hosed. Some old guys I've watched use a "mild enzymatic fluid" [spit], and roll their thread on their apron to twist it before waxing, but not only did their threads never carry much wax, but the twist was uneven--tight in some places, not so tight in others. Depending on what octane they'd been drinking, maybe the "mild enzymatic fluid" retarded microbes too, since they never got enough wax on there in my opinion

[marc]

Al,
You might check with your linen thread experts, but I believe that linen dries very quickly as individual cords, and bound up -- leaving them on a cord overnight makes perfect sense. Also, linen, when wet, takes straightening, or twisting very well and holds it. I wear enough linen shirts that I've learned this one. People who spin linen thread do so with the thread wet.

I am told by a spinner friend that spit has some adhesive qualities when dealing with threads or hair. I'm not sure I'm actually interested enough to study that potential legend in any great depth, but it seems to work for her.

As for the uneven twist of spitting and twisting, that may also be because they aren't using the magic hand trick

Marc

[dw]

Al,

Yes, I have to apologize if I left the impression that the thread could be waxed wet. As I recall, I just twisted the thread and then tied each end to something to hold the twist whilst it dried. Kind of a pain in the backside overall though, I must say--preparing each strand this way..

One thing about the dacron that I'm almost embarrassed to admit I like (especially in this group), is the reduced time and hassle of preparation. I believe I knock off 50% of the prep time making waxed ends with dacron versus the linen.

PS. Marc...magic hand trick??? I'm not sure I want to go there...

Tight Stitches...
DWFII--Member HCC

[Anonymous]

MR. CARLSON: ALERT! We have intercepted your on-line mention of the MAGIC HAND trick for making shoe threads. Divulging shoe secrets of that magnitude to the uninitiated will result in certain retribution, up to and including dismemberment.

Always watching,

Brother Fabian Delmonico
THE ROSI-SHOE-CIAN BROTHERHOOD OF THE CONCEALED CAT [French chapter]
[Not to be confused with the Boothead Cult, who we consider heretics]

[marc]

Hey Fra Fabian, long time no see. I'm glad the Invisible Fromage is still looking in on things. Since my membership was dissed some time back, I'm not too concerned. if you feel that I need to be tributed again, that's cool. Send the thugs and minions, I'll conceal them in the back room with the rest of them. You might try sending the cute one this time though, since the last batch went rancid.

DW, regarding the "Magic Hand Trick", see: http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/shoe/THREAD.HTM#WT "method 3".

Marc

[Anonymous]

Mr. Carlson:

Eeeeew, you stinker.... now you've gone and done it. I suppose we'll have to dispatch one of our cutest operatives--maybe "Pietro the Perky"

Brother Fabian Delmonico, DDS.

[Duncan McHarg]

Oh I'm still here DW,
I tune in twice a week at the library ( this town is so small that it's only open a total of 2 days a week), but it takes me nearly the whole hour sometimes just to read through the latest,and my typing is very slow; though is building up.Also,coming at shoe making from a different direction,I often can't comment on what's being said or understand all the terminology.
So I don't deliberatly "ghost":^)>

Al,
I only wax *after* twisting since taking up this technique.To melt it into the thread (and I'm only using ordinary bee's wax here) I have a piece
of bone coloured denim and I tend not to pinch it,squooshing the strands around, but rather (and this will be rather hard to do with just punctuation marks,but here goes) fold the cloth in half, place the thread between the two and with the thumb and forefinger apart, run the thread through them at an angle (thumb is fullstop;thread slash;forefinger apostrophe) ./' then wiz back and forth.Gets quite hot and thread remains round.

Update on the lastless 'thread' is that the boots are finished (they're on my feet now), the photos are taken ;though my flash is misbehaving, ruining a roll(see how I go converting them to detailed drawings).Now I've got to work out all the text to make it clear to you all how I do things,and find someone to scan all this tome(in three or four parts) onto this site. We're slowly getting there.

Till next time,
Cheers Duncan

P.S.This took me 45mins.

[D.A. Saguto--HCC]

Duncan,

Glad your library is open at all. Sounds right isolated out there. I, for one, could figure out your punctuation marks, and think I know what you meant. I'm not so worried about squishing the thread out of round. I think you'll find that if you make your threads up with an odd number of strands, it will tend to stay round. If you use an even number of strands it will want to lay flat. On some parts of the shoe you want round threads [uppers, etc.], but for welt-stitching, especially if you use a "square" or chisel-pointed awl, you'll get better results with a flat [even number of strands], ribbon-like thread. This awl leaves that series of slits: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, which are filled better with a flat thread.

[gcunning]

Al
I'm sure there are those laughing at this question but let them laugh. Why would odd numbers be round and even be flat? That does not make any logical sense(to me). I'm not questioning what your saying it just doesn't seem right.
Gary C

[D.A. Saguto--HCC]

Gary,

No fancy explanation--that's just what I was taught. It seems to hold true too. The guy who taught me used to be in the navy, and knew his ropes and knots too, so maybe it has to do with rope....? I dunno.

[gcunning]

I figured your answer would be like I tell my students sometimes. "It just is." I get a little nerdy sometimes and think about things to much. Threads are made of smaller threads and you wonder if they are even or odd. I will leave it at that. Just something to make you go "Hummmmm"?
Gary C

[Duncan McHarg]

Gary & Al,
The library is available Wed. & Friday hence two quick responses and now you won't hear from me for nearly a week

I'm interested in traditional archery (eg.making your own eqipment from the raw wood etc) and in I think vol.2 (or 3?) of "The Traditional Bowyer's Bible" there's a chapter on string making using Shoemakers Irish linen. He explaines that the optimum no. of strands is 7, because ,and he described it very well with little lumps of plasticene, you get one strand in the middle and the other 6 arranged neatly around it.No.s with less tend to have spaces in the middle ;while with more you have extra strands sitting as dead weight (as far as bow strings are concerned) in the middle.

The chapter's author ,in order to get the roundest,tautest,strongest and lightest string, makes plys of 7 individual strands, then plys them together in groups of 7, and so on.

More involved than we want for our shoes? but goes some way to explaining the odd=round, even=flat question?

My round shoe threads still squashed;maybe I was just pinching too hard.


Cheers Duncan.

[davidw]

While cruising the web today, I came across a source for "tapered polys." It's the Maine Thread and Machine Company at www.maine.com/methread. They claim to be an international supplier of hand sewing threads for shoemaking - mostly moccasin manufacturers I would guess. They have any of the "popular lengths" from 30" to 88" with tapered ends, in 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 13 cord weights, and in 20 different colors! Any of the thread is also available on reels or spools. Perhaps the longer lengths would save you the trouble, and possible weakness, of knoting together two threads for inseaming.

I've got enough 72" tapered 13 cord threads to last me a while, so I'm not interested in any right now. But if someone decides to try this source or has dealt with them, I'd love to hear about it.

[milertac]

Allen Miller, milertac@ctaz.com

DW,
after you make your waxed ends what do you use for a needle?

Allen

[dw]

Allen,

Typically, a "waxed end" is tipped with a bristle of some sort. Traditionally it was a boar's bristle--the long hairs coming from the nape of the neck of the European or Siberian boar.

Boar's bristles are hard to come by, especially the long (sometimes 6-8") Siberian bristles and as a result many have gone to monofilament fishing line. Boar's Bristles were often split and twisted into the "taw" (the tapered part) of the waxed end. Some brands of monofilament (typically the cheaper ones) can be split just like a boar's bristle.

A boar's bristle will do thing that a needle will never do. It will do things that a steel bristle will never do. Bristles will allow you to turn a corner and bristles will allow you to pull both ends of the thread through a relatively small hole, simultaneously.

Bristle will not punch a hole in the leather, however. For that you need an awl...or a needle.

Tight Stitches...
DWFII--Member HCC

[dw]

Jan Petter,

I "heard it through the grapevine" that you had ordered a sample of the dacron/polyester inseaming thread from Maine Thread. Good for you...we'll corrupt you yet! ;^P

I've got a roll of it being sent to me, as well. I hope it turns out to be everything I expect, because a continuous roll would be much better than the individual tapers themselves. As Janne correctly pointed out, you can't do "heel to heel" inseaming with the tapers unless you tie a knot.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[norwegian]

To DW,
Well, I think I want to try this "great stuff" and see how I like to deal with it!
I received a sample from Janne the other day and I must admit I was quite impressed about the look of it. Very nicely tapered!

How do you taper the Dacron/polyester from the roll? Any tricks compared to linen?

Until next time
JPM
Member HCC

[dw]

Jan Petter,

I have never tried the stuff off the roll myself, so I'm just guessing here--it's an educated guess as I do have some nylon on a big roll. It came from a boot factory and was used for machine inseaming.

My experience with the nylon was that you cut your nylon to length and then you took a knife (using the blade "on edge"), or a scraper, or even a piece of glass and "scraped" the ends, beginning at about 10" back, and progressing to the end of the cord. What you are really doing is cutting single filaments, or small groups of filaments, to create the taper. As first blush, it seems awfully inelegant, I know. But remember that the filaments you are dealing with are quite small in diameter and when waxed the taw will be as fine, and as *refined*, as the those on the tapers you got from Janne.

Of course, the dacron differs from the nylon a bit and you don't really want nylon, anyway, as it stretches and cannot hold the wax the way the dacron does. But I believe the technique of tapering will be the same.

Tight Stitches...
DWFII--Member HCC

[norwegian]

To DW,
Thank you for supervising!

Until next time
JPM
Member HCC