Hey everyone
I don't have a hot knife, and I'm not sure I'd even want to use it for this purpose if I had one.
I made double welt covered with a woven chenille. It frays pretty bad with just scissors.
I got a 'medium duty' soldering iron to melt the end, and it turned out pretty good.
Just wondering what the other tricks are. Being a light(ish) colored fabric, it can be kind of noticeable if the end gets burnt black.
If I'm really having trouble, I might post a photo.
Thanks
QuoteI got a 'medium duty' soldering iron to melt the end, and it turned out pretty good.
There are tips available for soldering guns that are flattened out at the tip. Gives you a "paddle" about the size of a AA battery to work with. Having been spoiled with a hot knife during my apprenticeship I broke down and bought an actual hot knife blade and foot and put them in my $20 Canadian tire soldering gun.
I use a very short stitch length. When I cut the flange, or lip, off the bottom of the DB welt cord, which I think is where you say it is fraying, if I understand you correctly, this helps hold it together and I can get the fraying threads cut very close to the DB welt cord.
If the fabric comes loose from the seams in a place or two I use a bit of hot melt glue to hold it together.
I use hot melt glue for the ends. I fold everything over and under, cutting away any excess, and use hot melt glue to hold it all together. The key is to not get too much bulk on the underside. I let the hot melt glue dry, and I can then hot melt or staple the DB cord to the furniture. This gives a nice clean ending to the DB welt cord.
You said "woven chinille" so I'm thinking you are not wanting/needing the top stick to show on the DB welt cord, rather you want the stitching to be down in the groove between the two welt cords.
I hope this helps.
gene
Quote from: Darren Henry on December 08, 2016, 08:32:54 am
QuoteI got a 'medium duty' soldering iron to melt the end, and it turned out pretty good.
Having been spoiled with a hot knife during my apprenticeship I broke down and bought an actual hot knife blade and foot and put them in my $20 Canadian tire soldering gun.
So this tip and foot fits right onto a soldering gun? Or are there modifications needed. What model gun are we talking about? I wouldn't mind going this route myself as the amount of acrylic we do doesn't really warrant a real hot knife.
(https://forum.upholster.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi40.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe216%2Fdjh_64%2Fth_heatcutter.jpg&hash=e562c5d1f354582e57399d9803802326) (http://s40.photobucket.com/user/djh_64/media/heatcutter.jpg.html)
I can't remember having to make any modifications, but that was 15 or 16 years ago. The soldering gun is an el cheapo---either from Canadian tire or Princess auto. Down your way, I'd try Harbour freight etc...I pay about $20 for one up here. They're all the same as far as tips etc...This one has two stages, 80 watt and 120. The expensive Engle unit has 100 watt and is pushing $200 .
I use a folding attachment when I sew DW. Because I have to cut my strips at an exact width in order to fit in the folder, there is no excess that requires trimming. Still, some fabrics ravel. I keep a cheap can of hair spray handy to spray the edges. It works similar to "No-Fray" spray, but cheaper.
Yep, I think I misunderstood what you were saying.
I used something like this once to keep the cut edges of fabric from unraveling so I could make DB welt cord.
http://www.joann.com/dritz-stay-tape-1-2inw-x-10yds-white/3745296.html#q=stay%2Btape&start=2
I'm not sure if this is the exact thing I used, but I ironed the tape down my lines on the fabric, then redrew the lines on the tape and cut away. It kept it from fraying. It may have been double sided no sew tape.
Anyway, I didn't need a lot of DB welt cord on that job so this was an easy way to go.
gene
gene
Quote from: MinUph on December 08, 2016, 06:20:01 pm
Quote from: Darren Henry on December 08, 2016, 08:32:54 am
QuoteI got a 'medium duty' soldering iron to melt the end, and it turned out pretty good.
Having been spoiled with a hot knife during my apprenticeship I broke down and bought an actual hot knife blade and foot and put them in my $20 Canadian tire soldering gun.
So this tip and foot fits right onto a soldering gun? Or are there modifications needed. What model gun are we talking about? I wouldn't mind going this route myself as the amount of acrylic we do doesn't really warrant a real hot knife.
It's a Weller 'medium duty' soldering iron from home depot. Comes with 3 different tips. The one in the iron is a chisel tip, it's about 1/4". I found I could either just wait for it to heat up and then cut right through it, or, cut through it with scissors and then just 'dab' the end of the DW to melt those fibers and prevent fraying.
Quote from: gene on December 08, 2016, 03:39:14 pm
I use a very short stitch length. When I cut the flange, or lip, off the bottom of the DB welt cord, which I think is where you say it is fraying, if I understand you correctly, this helps hold it together and I can get the fraying threads cut very close to the DB welt cord.
If the fabric comes loose from the seams in a place or two I use a bit of hot melt glue to hold it together.
I use hot melt glue for the ends. I fold everything over and under, cutting away any excess, and use hot melt glue to hold it all together. The key is to not get too much bulk on the underside. I let the hot melt glue dry, and I can then hot melt or staple the DB cord to the furniture. This gives a nice clean ending to the DB welt cord.
I had to read this a couple times before I understood. No, I was able to cut the 'flange' off the DW just fine. No problems there. I did use hot melt to attach, and actually because of the slight fray, that gave the glue more surface area and it stuck very well.
I'm talking about when join ends. It's a tricky deal.
You said "woven chinille" so I'm thinking you are not wanting/needing the top stick to show on the DB welt cord, rather you want the stitching to be down in the groove between the two welt cords.
I hope this helps.
gene
Sorry about the quoted replies mess guys.
I'll be better at that next time. Tomorrow I'll take a good photo and you guys can critique it.
Thanks
Ian
Here's the join. I created a permalink so you can see detail.
http://gdurl.com/xcIv
It's sometimes a hard thing to end DW. I personally don't like the raw edge approach I think even if bulkier it is better to end each side with no raw edge. Raw edges will ravel in time even if they have glue on them.
thanks for the input.