Making the Most of a Minimal Budget. Contact me at: skintsailor@yahoo.co.uk or on Twitter: @skintsailor

Friday 13 May 2016

Thursday...

I had a little half hour sail.

First I had to sort the burst stitches on the boat. This is where the speedy stitcher really comes into its own: stitching in-situ.

This is the stitching that burst. I needed to make sure the seam was closed up before putting any strain on the sail otherwise the burst might have extended.




So, out with the speedy stitcher and overlay some stitches with new thread over a short length of the old...


Then 20 minutes of stitching later the gap is closed...



I just ran half a dozen new stitches back over the end and then on the final stitch, pusher the needle through and the pulled some thread through so both threads were on the same side. I then tied the ends together, job done.

Looking at the pictures reminded me I fitted new grommets on the sail too, a few weeks ago. The old brass ones had corroded badly.

Once done, I went sailing!


3 comments:

  1. I am wondering if for any new stitching work it would be a good idea to have the stitch line under some sort of tension? as the foot of the sail that you have just repaired is; so that the sail cloth doesn't have any chance of bunching up ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. It doesn't really matter that much. When I did the jib I lined the panels up on the foor and used a stapler to hold them in place. The tension in the thread is kept by holding onto the lower thread so the loop doesn't pull through the material and a few tugs on the speedy stitcher once its pulled out of the material. That tends to snug the stitches up well. Having something hold the material in place does make it easier. With this job I just let the boom down, plonked it on my lap and started stitching.

    Having existing stitch holes makes things easier although with the two bits of material pulled apart like that I had to make sure I pushed the needle through the corresponding hole on the back. But after a short run of stitches it pulled together and it started to line up better.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete