Thread

[lancepryor]

Nasser and DW:

If you decide to bid on this stuff, don't go above the opening bid; if you don't win it, I believe the guy will give you a 'second chance' offer at your bid price. It would seem he had quite a bit of it.

DW, I am sure if you check fairly often he will run additional auctions of this stuff. He always uses the same title, etc., so you could even set up an e-bay search to notify you when he lists more -- just set up the search as a favorite and then select the notification option.

You might also want to inquire of him if he has any of the Barbour #15 thread that he used to sell. It is from the early 50's and is in even better shape than the Arcadia stuff in the auction. It is a bit pricier (perhaps 2 or 3 buck per ball) but is beautiful stuff. You would use 3 strands of the #15 for every 2 of the #10.

[amuckart]

I sure hope he has more because I direly need some of this stuff I have a ball or so left and it is so much nicer to use than the wet-spun swedish stuff I've been using instead.

For what it's worth, my wife is quite partial to crystal light, and the plastic tubes the wee tubs of powder come in are the perfect size for storing three rolls of the acadia thread.

[dearbone]

Dear Dw ,Thanks for your support and the cheerleading crew, I am watching this item like a hawk,The seller has been selling this thread for years,as Lance mentioned,So there is hope there will be more. Nasser

(Message edited by dearbone on October 15, 2007)

(Message edited by dearbone on October 15, 2007)

[marcell]

I can't believe that you are so sad about an expensive box of thread.. Do not take it bad, please. As I have much cheaper sources here in Hungary - should I start a mini-webshop to help you?

[dearbone]

Marcell M
Thank you for your post,I am delighted to hear you have a source for Irish thread in Hungary,How much is a box of it over where you are? It will be kind of you to post us a picture of a roll. As for you starting a mini-webshop for us, Not a bad idea, As long as you can stick to your last at the same time. United under the Thread of Crispin.
Have a nice day all, I gotta make shoes now.
dearbone

(Message edited by dearbone on October 16, 2007)

[dearbone]

It is 5 AM in Toronto and it is fuggy,Good morning, you probably want to hear about the hemp thread bid last night, Well I was outbid on the last minute, The good news is that the seller offered a second chance,so I bought a box of the thread. Lance, sir you were 100% correct about this seller,I respect your words & insight. DW, your seven cheering elfs are awesome. Talk to you soon. I will let you know how the thread is when I receive it.
dearbone

[dw]

Nasser,

I am sorry you lost the auction...But all's well that ends well, eh?

I also picked up some thread from this person--the last of his old stock #15.

Hard to tell whether I will ever use it but it will be worth having if only to play around with.

Ultimately, I think this is one area where we must all change with the times...like it or not. Many, if not all, of the truly great Irish linen mills have closed their doors. And what is currently being produced falls far short of expectations and is often more hassle than it is worth.

We might all have to go to dacron...

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[dearbone]

DWFII,
Tell me about this dacron thread, Can I hand stitch with it? Can I put few strands, wax them and twiste to make thread or Is it for machine use? Great regards.
Nasser

[lancepryor]

I hope you guys like the thread. I definitely look forward to your reactions.

DW, I think the #15 is really great -- mine is in like new condition, even though it is 50 years old! I am using my #10 in order to save the #15 til I can do it more justice.

[dw]

Nassaer,

I use unwaxed Teklon (darcon/polyester)in 11 cord (actually 8 strands) for inseaming and it is perfect. It takes a little more time to taper the ends to mount on a bristle than it does with linen and the wax does not adhere quite as well. But it doesn't rot so getting th ewax to penetrate and adhere to the strands of yarn is not nearly so critical as it is with linen/hemp.

I have sewn the outsole with "7 cord" (actually 4 strands) and it worked good. The 7 cord I have is pre-waxed, though, so it was a pain to taper and mount to a bristle. I am getting unwaxed, brown, and white 4 strand to test for outsoles.

I have no doubts.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Membe

[dw]

Nasser,

If you are going to order some, I think you need to visit their site. The confusing thing is that they label it as "11 cord" and "8 cord" and so forth...relating to equivalent substance in commercial machine grade linen thread. But whatever the label is, it is not the same as the number of strands. So be a little careful there.

Like I said I use 7 cord (four ply) and 11 cord ( I think that's actually 7 ply)

Sorry if it's confusing but maybe worth it.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[dearbone]

I roger that DW, Thank you. In regard to mounting thread to bristle, I use needles which I curve myself, But years ago Cooky, A shoe maker for Lobb gave me some nylon bristles, which he was using at the time, They are roughed up on one end to hold the tapered end of the thread tight. This bristles can be easly made, using fishing line. regards. Nasser

[dw]

Nasser,

Well, yes. Nylon fishing line is what I use too. I have, as I said, about half a pound of blond (and black) nine inch boars bristles that I bought some years ago. But I actually prefer the nylon.

I split nylon bristles just like you would split a hog's bristle and then I interweave the taper into and between the split ends.

There are a series of short videos in wmv format here on the forum:

http://www.thehcc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4170

a couple of which show things you may be interested in--using and preparing dacron for inseaming thread, how to prepare and split nylon bristles, and how to mount them on tapered dacron.

Then again, you may not like the way I do it...but it's there if you are interested.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[dearbone]

DW
Thanks for the video link, I watched most of them, and read the discussion from 2002, There was enough info there to kill a horse, I enjoyed it, I will say no more about mounting bristles. I think most of us do our work with a little different methods from each other, but the goal is the same. I did not make any shoes today, good thing the mail lady droped a cheque for me this morning for some props I made for this movie called BOOKY AND THE SECRET SANTA. Good day all.

[dearbone]

Rob Elferink
Thank you for guiding a low tech shoe maker like me how to upload pictures, I posted three on the gallery, I need to reduce the size lower even than 640. Thanks again for all of support and I am looking forward to share and learn from you.
Nasser

[dw]

Nasser,

Try right-clicking on your ...now reduced...photos in the Gallery and select "save as" or "save image" or something like that.

Save the downloaded image on your hard drive. Then open the image in your photo editor and check how your editor is "seeing"/sizing the photo.

Write that sizing down and you will have it for the next time.

That said...it is the combination of "visual size"--640 x 480 or 6" x 4"-- plus the "density"--dots per inch--that determines how a photo will display. If you reduce a photo to 640 x 480 but leave it at 300 dpi, it will still display as if it were much, much, larger than 640 x 480.


Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[dearbone]

DW
I have few questions about boot lasts, I will post them on the lasts section. I posted another picture at 480 and it came out okey or maybe the folks at mission control are doing my editing. Thanks.

[dw]

Apropos of thread and sewing the outsole by hand, I finally finished "outseaming" my first pair of shoes.

You know, over the years I have experienced something strange...sometimes when you do a technique the first time, and you're innocent and ignorant, the job turns out pretty good. Then the second time, when you might know a little better and have a little more confidence, you find out how hard it really is and how little you actually know.

I have hand sewn the outsoles on no more than three occasions, and the first time was good enough that I posted photos on the forum. But this last time was a nightmare...except towards the last half of the second shoe.

I decided to go with linen thread for this job. I started out with a commercial, machine sewing thread in size 8--standard Barbour's Red Hand. I had problems right from the get go. Breakage of the thread, Slippage of the bristle, etc. And I had what I thought was a good hand wax. Took me eight hours to do the first shoe.

So, I switched to a hand twisted linen thread--four strands of #10 Irish linen. It was a little better, but only just. The last straw was about a quarter of the way through the second shoe, the thread just parted...not at the stitch, not under any undue pressure...it just separated from the rest.

By this time, I'm thinking that I might have to give up my goal of making men's shoes with a beveled waist and just sew everything on a curved needle. In desperation, I un-raveled some 11 cord (8 ply) unwaxed Teklon. I tapered it, waxed it, very slightly re-twisted it, and mounted a split nylon bristle.

I had no problems from that point on. I finished the last three-quarters of the welt in a very respectable time.

I know the depth of my ignorance in this regard. Maybe I should have gone with 6 strands of #15 linen. Maybe my wax wasn't right. Maybe my outsole was too dry. But I've got to say that the Teklon made a neater, cleaner, more even stitch. And for that one--one, only...occasion when the stitch wouldn't lay quite right, the thread did not break when I pulled the stitch open to reposition it. Even thought the wax made a "popping" sound as the bond was broken.

I offer the following photo which is actually pretty representative of all the stitching done with the Teklon. I have found out that the Teklon will take dye very well and permanently. And I intend to prick up the welt and dye the thread on this pair...so understand that the photo does not represent the finished job nor the final appearance. Next time I will dye the thread before sewing.

I offer this with no suggestion that this is a superior technique to using linen. I am not experienced enough to make that call. But I offer it as an alternative, and a viable one especially in light of the scarcity of good linen yarn. That said, Teklon is superior in strength to linen, it is non rotting, and it is available. On the other hand, it stretches a bit--not nearly as much as nylon--and it does not hold the wax quite as well as linen. It is also harder to make a taper, but only marginally so.

Your call...

5590.jpg

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

[dw]

PS...forgot to mention--11spi


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC

[dearbone]

DW
I have been hand sewing all of shoe making years, I know every shoe construction (bottoming) ever made since the time of Hammurabai,But this is what my mentor, peace be with him tought me about the hand sewing out soles or insoles, that the shoe maker or the boot maker cut the soles a day before sewing and put them in water for few hours, 4 to 6 hours is enough for American soling leather.Than taken from the water and wraped in newspaper (3 to 4 layers)and left in dark place in the shop until the next morning, while applying glue to the shoe and soles, you cut your theard, depending on the purpose of strengh you cut the strands, I cut 4 or 5 for insole sewing and 6 or more for out soles.#10 BARBOUR, LINEN SINLE SHOE,Now my tapering stands like the CN TOWER, I use needle I curve myself to the curve of the awl,Although I have both shoe nylon and real bristles. to pratice hand sewing I will be post the next shoe here and than I will explain how it is channeled. I will say few words about how I make my thread. Regards. Nasser

(Message edited by dearbone on October 21, 2007)

[dearbone]

5592.jpg

[dearbone]

Okey here it is, The light welt, Same leather as the upper, But optional, A piece of about an inch and half wide and for length,from the plate around the last to the other side, I also sew them all around the heel and everything, There would be no need for nails, tacks or pegs if the heel is sewn. Now the insole cut from the last,Shaved with a piece of glass on the grain side ,the reason for the shaving is that insole grain would not crack after wear, okey back to insoles, cut and soak in water and do what I said about soles above. Now next day take out insoles and put them on the last and trim to feather, now we cut the channeles (lip)About 3/8 from the feather, not too deep and make sure you do not go through the insole.If you wish to make your holes into insoles , now is the time, I make holes as I go one by one.last your shoe or boot,if not sewing all around, tack your heels first, Now the insole is ready to be sewn to your piece of welt,make your thread , the German awl works well on this, placing the welt around the shoe by using few small tacks, the grain side facing the shoe,sewing starts at around the heel plate area and goes around the shoe until we get to the other side of the plate. the awl goes through the lip into upper, lining, welt and every thing you can sandwich in between and comes out half way through the insole, take some nails out to see as you go around the shoe sewing. trim the welt about 4mm below the stitch line and turn when you finish.I use a strap to secure the shoe while sewing. If I remember more I will post them later. Thread waxing is for later if any one interested.
Nasser

[dearbone]

Greetings to you all, Finally the shoe thead # 10 is here, I went to work right away, First I put my apren on and cut 5 strands ,I lightly rub some sticky wax on it, enough to hold the strands togather, than I went to twist it and it worked, not as good as my old thread, But as DW asid, we can not find the other thread, This thread is a little britle, before waxing, take the loose fibers out, clean it, it works better. the next box is on sale,so if anyone needs thread, you know what to do. I might bid on the next one. I will tell you more when I actually sew or stitch with it.

[lancepryor]

I have been working on another pair of shoes recently, and I just finished sewing one of my outsoles. DW, as you know, doing this affords one plenty of time to think, and I was noodling on the process and what I’ve learned in my limited attempts to do this.

My stitching was done using a square awl at 10 spi, with 4 strands of #10 linen thread and a blond hand wax based on the recipe posted by Jake Dobbins. I think my wax is a bit soft, but it sure is sticky. I cut my channel in from the bottom of the outsole, rather than in from the side.

This is the first time I’ve sewn on an outsole with out losing a single bristle or breaking the thread, so that in itself is a major improvement.

I also think that my stitching looks pretty good, with relatively few wayward stitches, particularly along the outside of the shoe, which I stitched in daylight. The better light helped me place my stitches. The stitching I did last night features a few out-of-line stitches, caused largely by poorly placed awl holes.

So, for those few (if any) of you who may be interested, here are some of my musings on the process.

First of all, when making the awl holes, it is perfectly fine to push the awl relatively far into the outsole, thereby creating a pretty wide hole for the bristles and the thread to travel through -- I reckon my awl protrudes nearly 1/2 inch through the outsole. This makes it much easier to get the bristles through the holes and also greatly reduces the likelihood of losing a bristle. Now, this might seem to be sub optimal, since it does make a relatively wide hole. However, IMO, this is not a problem for two reasons: first, unlike in inseaming, we are not relying on this seam to be watertight, so a slightly large hole wouldn’t really matter; second, and more important, these holes close right back up when the next hole is made! The actual cut of the square awl is very small, because of its shape, and thus when you drive the shaft of the awl through the leather, you are NOT cutting any additional leather, you are really just levering the hole open. This hole will close back up by itself, and this process will be accelerated by the placement of the next awl hole, which puts horizontal pressure on the welt and closes up the previous awl holes. Just as an experiment, I made a welt/outsole sample, and I tried making two sets of awl holes -- in the first, I only drove the awl sufficiently far into the leather to make a very small cut/hole in the outsole, not much wider than a hair, and even on the welt side the hole was pretty small, perhaps 1/2 mm wide. Based on previous experience, this small/narrow a set of holes is a recipe for losing bristles in a hurry. In the second set, I pushed the awl 1/2 inch through the outsole, generating a hole that was probably 1 to 2 mm wide on both the sole and welt side due to the taper of the awl shaft. After completing the holing, the holes on the welt side of the two samples were virtually indistinguishable (!), because the second set of holes closed right back up when another hole was made, and the holes in the sole side were also quite similar.

In terms of making my awl holes and hitting the channel consistently, I think this is largely a matter of feel. However, one thing I started doing that seemed to help was the way I made my awl holes. What I did was essentially a two-step move -- to penetrate the welt, I would place the tip/blade of the awl flat on the welt and force the awl straight down into the welt -- thus the force of the pressure was essentially perpendicular to the shaft of the awl. I could feel when the welt had been pierced and the blade of the awl was against the outsole leather. Then, I would lift the handle of the awl toward the shoe upper, which changed the orientation of the awl tip. Now, the very tip of the awl blade was leading the way, making for a very sharp penetrating element, and also (assuming the awl is properly mounted in the haft) putting the penetrating point directly in line with the haft, making it easier to sense where the point was and where it would exit the sole. (This is hard to explain but might make sense if you have a square awl. Here is an analogy: think about a skiving knife with the blade cut at the typical 45 degrees to the length of the metal, and a strip of leather. My first step is to put the awl (knife) on the welt (leather) such that the entire length of the cutting surface is on the welt (leather) -- I then push the entire cutting surface straight down into the welt (hard to do with a knife, but not so hard with a square awl). The second step is to lift the haft (butt of the knife), such that the tip of the awl (knife) is facing down into the leather. This second orientation makes it very easy to penetrate the sole leather, since there is a very sharp point leading the way.)

My efforts to make the stitches lie consistently on the welt really had a couple of keys. First, I tried to make the awl holes line up properly relative to the upper and the previous hole. In my experience, the easiest way to get a messed up stitch is to get the hole out of line -- that almost guarantees a problem. Second, I tried to make sure the orientation of the bristles and the threads stayed the same for every stitch. In my case, I tried to do two things in this regard -- 1. always have the bristle coming from the sole side be closer to me than the bristle coming from the welt side, and 2. try to make sure that as I pulled the threads through that the thread coming from the welt side was away from the upper relative to the thread coming from the sole side. Finally, I also found that it helped to finish pulling the thread coming from the welt side before finishing pulling the other thread, even if it was only the final 1/2 inch of the latter. In other words, to the degree that I was going to have at least something of a rope effect, at least I wanted to ensure a consistent rope effect.

In terms of getting the much desired ‘bead effect,’ my guess is that my thread was probably twisted a bit more tightly than is optimal, but I get nervous when I start seeing the thread being pulled through the holes with little or no twist left in it. As I mulled over why little twist would lead to the bead effect, I realized that two tightly twisted ( and hence round) threads going through a wide but thin hole would almost by necessity rest side by side (thus leading to the rope effect), whereas a lightly twisted pair of threads could allow the individual strands to spread out widthwise, thus allowing the bead effect.

5597.jpg

5598.jpg

[dw]

Lance,

I too figured out that pushing the awl in deeper made a larger hole yet did no permanent damage to the welt. Didn't help me much, though. You sure did a better job of sewing with the linen than I could.


Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC