Sewing Machine for Onboard Sail Repairs ?

[boatman61]

As has been said... if your making new sails a machines ok... but just for repairs at sea invest in a good sailmakers kit... Palm, quality needles and a variety of sizes of good waxed thread...
Hand sewing is not that hard and you have the old holes already there to follow... if fitting a new panel in try using bluetack instead of a glue to hold seams in place... or even strips of tape spaced along the length.. if you glue before sewing your going to clog your needle on every pass and make the job slower and much harder than it is...
There's a transparent rip stop tape out there thats excellent... used some on my last job for the Spinny but don't remember who makes it...

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

Randy,
It's good to hear from a pro regarding what's really needed to sew sails.

Just the other day I had a customer who brought in her Featherweight for service.
She complained it wouldn't sew her sails, and insisted it was a heavy duty machine because that's how it was listed on Ebay !

Geesh.

Ran across a guy that would sew his sails with a featherweight but only
Around the sides and then didn't use the motor. He rolled it over by hand and
drug the machine on a towel along side the sail.

There are machines out there that will sew the major needs on a boat without going to an older machine.
I just purchased another machine ,a small unit to do work inside. The wife doesn't like me to mess with her Viking Ruby, or her featherweight. The new machine is "H" class 100 from Viking. The only mod was to add a denim needle. And you can't use bonded thread. I'm making a sunbrella quilt with all my scraps and using denim on the back. The new machine sewed their 6 layers of sunbrella without knocking..
And the wife has just ordered a new series machine from Viking, its called an Opal and soposed to bridge the gap between the featherweight and the Ruby.

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by Shanaly

can anyone recommend a sail glue please?

Never heard of a sail glue but I do use a product called Seamstick which is a two sided tape. You can find it at sailmaker.com

[ribbony]

Here is the detail on the 3m product: Australia - Marine Solutions - Bonding & Sealing

The only question that I would raise is it's UV durability if used on sails. Anyone add their experience in that department ?

Here is an interesting quote from Wikipedia on Sails : "Glued sails are regular paneled sails but instead of sewing the pieces together, the sail maker uses a special, ultra-strong polymer glue which bonds through the use of ultrasound".

Anyone got a welded sail ? I had not heard of them, though welded fabrics are used in many other aplications.