One of the interesting things I observed in the videos of Anthony Delos and Pierre Corthay is that they use boars' bristles for inseaming and/or outseaming. I've just finished hand-sewing a pair of outseams at 10 SPI for which I used boars' bristles rather than fishing line. For anyone hand-sewing outsoles, I highly recommend giving the bristles a try!
The bristles have a couple of advantages; first, the very nature of the bristle is that they are textured/'grabby', so they really make it easy to put shoemaker's wax on them before attaching the thread. (Think about those micro-photographs of hair used by shampoo companies-- the hair has lots of texture/is scaly at a microscopic level.) So, rather than having to sand and crimp a mono-filament bristle, you just put some wax on the bristle and get to wrapping. The thread also seems to stay on the bristle a bit better, again perhaps due to the texture of the bristle.
Also, at least compared to my mono-filament, the bristles are much stiffer yet smaller in diameter, making it easier and faster to put through the awl holes.
Finally, it is pretty easy to put a curve into the end of the bristle but twisting the end around a finger or the shaft of an awl; this is helpful when sewing the waist area of a beveled waist.
Of course, you do need to be a bit more gentle with the bristles than you do with mono-filament, and because of this I'm not sure I'd want to use them for inseaming, but for outseaming I really enjoy using them.
Here are a couple of pics of my bristle and the thread after outseaming a shoe.
14417.jpg
14418.jpg
So, maybe someone else will give it a try!
Lance
ps. I believe Francis Classe has these bristles still available. see here:
Francis bristle discussion
(Message edited by lancepryor on February 26, 2012)
(Message edited by lancepryor on February 26, 2012)
(Message edited by lancepryor on February 26, 2012)
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