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Sewing wet suit material

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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writerwomen

New Member
Jan 5, 2011
2
0
0
Hi everyone:
I'm in search of some info. Recently someone contacted me asking how to sew material they described as wetsuit material. I've sewn for more then 30 years but this is a new one to me. The person is across the contry so my advice without actually handling such material is limited to what I know about such materials.What advice can you offer?
I'm looking for as much detail as possible. Even down to the needle recommendations. Thank you so much.
 
you might check with some suit mfg's to see what their tricks of the trade are but for starters some wiki info:

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetsuit]Wetsuit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The first suits used traditional sewing methods to simply overlap two strips of rubber and sew them together. In a rubber wetsuit this does not work well for a number of reasons, the main one being that punching holes straight through both layers of foam for the thread opens up passages for water to flow in and out of the suit. The second problem is that the stretching of the foam tended to enlarge the needle holes when the suit was worn. This meant that a wetsuit could be very cold all along the seams of the suit. And although the sewn edge did hold the two pieces together, it could also act as a perforated tear edge, making the suit easier to tear along the seams when putting it on and taking it off.

When nylon-backed neoprene appeared, the problem of the needle weakening the foam was solved, but still the needle holes leaked water along the seams.

Seam taping. To deal with all these early sewing problems, taping of seams was developed. The tape is a strong nylon cloth with a very thin but solid waterproof rubber backing. The tape is applied across the seam and bonded either with a chemical solvent or with a hot rolling heat-sealer to melt the tape into the neoprene.

With this technology, the suit could be sewn and then taped, and the tape would cover the sewing holes as well as providing some extra strength to prevent tearing along the needle holes.

When colorful double-backed designer suits started appearing, taping moved primarily to the inside of the suit because the tape was usually very wide, jagged, black, and ugly, and was hidden within the suit and out of sight.

Many 1960's and 1970s wetsuits were black with visible yellow seam taping. The yellow made the divers more easily seen in dark low-visibility water. To avoid this problem O'Neill fabricators developed a seam-tape which combined a thin nylon layer with a polyester hemming tape. Applied over the interior of the glued & sewn seam , then anneal bonded with a hand held teflon heating iron produced a seam that was both securely sealed and much stronger.

Seam gluing. Another alternative to sewing was to glue the edges of the suit together. This created a smooth, flat surface that did not necessarily need taping, but unfortunately raw foam glued to foam is not a strong bond and still prone to tearing.

Most early wetsuits were fabricated completely by hand, which could lead to sizing errors in the cutting of the foam sheeting. If the cut edges did not align correctly or the gluing was not done well, there might still be water leakage along the seam.

Initially suits could be found as being sewn only, glued only, taped only, then also sewn and taped, or glued and taped, or perhaps all three.

Blindstitch revolution. Sometime after nylon-backed neoprene appeared, the blind stitch method was developed. A blindstitch sewing machine uses a very unusual curved needle, which is designed to not go all the way through the neoprene but just shallowly dip in behind the fabric backing.

The curved needle allows the fabric backing to be sewn together without punching a hole completely through the neoprene, and thereby eliminating the water-leakage holes along the seam. Blindstitch seams also lay flat, butting up the edge of one sheet against another, allowing the material to lay flatter and closer to the skin. For these reasons blindstitching rapidly became the primary method of sewing wetsuits together, with other methods now used mainly for decorative or stylistic purposes.


good luck in your search!

kp
 
thank you for the history ofwet suits it is helpful and will further assist me in my search. My understanding is this person is using the material in the making of some sort of a back brace. I guess if I can get a holdof some of what he is using I can give a try (hopefully without to much stress on me or my machine)
 
Welcome from Texas! Hope you find the info needed to complete your project.
 
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