Fuck Kelly.

[liz@midwest.social]

The thing is, it’s pretty dang easy to sharpen scissors on a sharpening stone. Like, use em for everything! Go ham! Just sharpen them when they get dull.

[liz@midwest.social]

Seriously, what’s with these people thinking fabric scissors are magic? If anything, they’re significantly easier to sharpen than a knife.

[ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works]

Great questions!

I kinda fell into it tbh. My buddy worked at the local sailmakers and got me the job when I was 16. Never looked back. A lot of people will start because they race or sail but there’s an equal amount that just do it as a job and don’t sail at all. I did grow up sailing but it wasn’t on my radar for a career. I still talk with my buddy every now and then, I credit him with a long a varied career!

The biggest sail I’ve ever worked on was the spinnaker for the HMCS Oriole. It was 6000 sq/ft if I remember correctly. Freaking massive. We never saw it fully open until it got raised on the boat as we were in a very small shop! My coworker sewed all the panels together and I did all the rest, my boss painted the oriole on it and did a fantastic job. We were very proud of ourselves. I was so worried there was going to be a tub of pins somewhere in it and they would rain death down on the deck when they raised it!!

Hmmm, that really depends on what you like to do best. My specialty was racing sails, so I guess I’d have to say laminates were my favourites. Though if you were a traditional sailmaker than you’d like the heavier and softer fabrics and ropes. My coworker likes the spinnakers best as all she did was sew so getting those under the machines is much nicer. Being a shop with big sewing machines you end up sewing things other than sails and the job I hated was the boat house curtains. So big and heavy. The material wasn’t terrible it was just a crap job lol. And they were usually filthy.

You do need some specialized equipment, but it’s all the different parts on the sails that really make it niche. So there’s the obvious sewing machines, and you’ll need at least 3 different ones to cover what you might come across. The main one being a long arm walking foot. Then a straight stitch for canvas, a lighter zigzag for dinghy sails and sail bags, and a triple stitch for seams and resewing. But you can resew with the zigzag so that one is optional for a small repair loft. Hand tools like a hot knife, grommet punches and dies, palm for hand sewing, big hand sewing needles. Big rulers, carpenter squares, and lofting battens. I know I’m forgetting stuff but that’s what’s jumping out at me. The stuff that adds up though is all the things you need to repair or make sails. Different sizes and types of webbing, slugs, slides, rings, batten hardware, batten material! Oof, you end up collecting a lot of random stuff. I had a small repair loft and I couldn’t keep every little bit in stock so would save what was still good for that random sail that would come in.

I’m not sure about the knife you mention? Did I say that? We would use a hot knife for melting and sealing all the time.

Let me know if you have any other questions! That was fun.

[kboy101222@sh.itjust.works]

Thanks a ton for the answers!

I’m honestly unsure where my brain got the knife thing if I’m being honest.

One more question for you if you don’t mind -

How’s kevlar to work with?

[lovablesidekick@lemmy.world]

Family is gathered around grandpa in this exact situation. He raises his head and squints around at everybody.

That you, Bill?
Yes, dad, it’s me.
Is Carol here?
Yes, I’m here dad.
Jimmy? Sally? Are they here too?
Yes dad, the kids are here.
Is Walt here?
Yeah dad, I’m right here.
You’re all here?
Yes, we’re all here dad.
Everybody’s right here?
Yes, dad.

Then why is the goddam kitchen light still on???

[jimvandeventer@lemmy.world]

I am sliding gracefully into dad mode about thermostats because that is ancient technology and you should know better. Lights are all LEDs now and I even got the ones with batteries so they stay on in a blackout, so leaving them on charges them and is good, sort of.

[ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works]

Haha, my brain does the same thing all the time.

Kevlar is a funny one for me as I’m now allergic to it. Yay occupational disease! If I have to use it for a quick job it’s fine, but anything longer than an hour I get what feels like a sunburn. Usually on my arms and cheeks, basically where I touch when I push up my sleeves or whatnot. Doesn’t get red, just feels like a bad sunburn. One of the ways it’s used is in big rolls with an adhesive backing, for patches. So we’re not really sure if it’s the Kevlar or the adhesive, but I can use any other product with an adhesive back and it doesn’t happen.

Anyhoo, Kevlar is really tough, so it can be a pain to cut. That toughness makes it great for backing patches or chafe patches. On Genoas we’d use it to make spreader patches. It’s really only used like that on laminate sails. Though I’ve seen Kevlar leech line used on Dacron sails. Another common use is in kayak hulls along the keel for abrasion resistance. It also has a very high melting point and will char more than melt, which also helps with chafe. Its UV resistance isn’t the best so it will deteriorate over time. But racing sails don’t last as long as cruising sails so it evens out. You can recognize it on a sail as it’s a golden yellow.

The fibers and technology in racing sails are pretty crazy. There’s some neat videos online if you want to dive a bit deeper into it.

[kboy101222@sh.itjust.works]

A kevlar allergy is definitely an interesting one!

I gotta ask what you mean by patches. Judging by the fact you seem to mostly work on racing ships and other very expensive sailing ships, I’m guessing you don’t mean patches in the sense of filler material to fix holes?

[warl0k3@lemmy.world]

I think it’s down to most people not having used modern high end shears, which usually have convex bevels (and some pain in the ass exotic steels). If you can sharpen that without destroying the tension/edge finish using a hardware store stone (like someone in this thread was claiming), I’ll be properly reverential.

[lovablesidekick@lemmy.world]

Grampa still uses incandescents - he saw a meme about how you need a hazmat team if you break one o’ them newfangled bulbs and he’s not letting Obama jam those things down his throat!!!

[lifeinmultiplechoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

So you know how when you cut something and the object was to hard for the scissors and the object turns sideways between the 2 blades and makes it so the scissors never function as well again? I’m way to good at doing that… Other than pulling my head out of my ass and using a different tool, any suggestions on how to fix those tools? My kitchen sheets are like that now after using them to prune my strawberries plants outside. (Clearly I need to have designated sheers/scissors for different things, but sometimes I’m just that idiot that thinks 1 hammer fits all jobs

[baaahb@feddit.nl]

Use the right tool for the job. If you can’t figure out what the right tool is, you are the wrong tool.

[oatscoop@midwest.social]

Scissors work because the blades are tight against each other – there’s no gap between them when they’re cutting. When they “go sideways” it’s usually because the hinge is loose.

If they’re good quality scissors, you probably need to tighten the screw holding the blades together.

[lifeinmultiplechoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Yeah, old scissors used to have those, my kitchen sheers unfortunately do not, need to just get a nice pair and only use them for the kitchen.

[liz@midwest.social]

You can still probably tighten them. Here’s a couple techniques. What you’re trying to do is squish the rivet holding the two halves together in order to tighten it back up.

[liz@midwest.social]

Yeah maybe with a belt sharpener, but I just use my stone. I guess my scissors have a flat bevel. It never occurred to me anyone would put a convex edge on a pair of scissors. Unless you’re talking about how the blades bend inwards slightly, in which case, I haven’t had any issues getting my scissors back to fabric-sharp.

[liz@midwest.social]

Compact fluorescents are so last decade.

[lifeinmultiplechoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Thanks, I’ll see if I can give that a try. I’ll be back to trying to cut down am oak tree with my kitchen sheers in no time! Haha

[warl0k3@lemmy.world]

That single (or doubled) convex blade profile is the big defining difference between shears and scissors. There’s some other things like grip sizes and thickness of the blades relative to each other that separate things like tailoring shears and dressmaking shears, but those aren’t nearly as codified. And that’s ignoring all the complexities you get with beauty shears, or the absolute hell that is trying to sharpen pinking or thinning shears, especially if the blade has a nick in it that requires reprofiling. Its fascinating how complex such simple tools have become as we’ve adapted them for ever more specialized tasks.

[ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works]

Well, kinda. Imagine there’s a tear in the sail, you’d put a patch on it. And on a laminate, or plastic, sail it would be like a big sticker. Of if there is a place where you know something is going to rub constantly, you’d put a chafe patch. And as laminates aren’t very strong when they’re punctured, like with a sewing needle, you’d put reinforcing patches under whatever you want to sew down.

Tbh, I haven’t worked with laminate sails in a long time. I did service and repair work in my shop mostly, for regular sailors. Honestly I used to get a fair bit of work from the bigger lofts where small repair work wasn’t worth it for them it do. And really, these sails aren’t just for big fancy race boats, any sailing club with racers (which is pretty much all of them) will have people with laminate sails. The general public only sees the big races, like the americas cup or vendee globe, but every Wednesday night around the world, there’s regular people out racing.