Starching and Piping - for double-welt inner pocket

[OlymposPartizanos]

This seems to be a small trick of Chinese tailors possibly borrowed from those traditional tailors (which dealing a large amount of silk fabric, they often starch silk before cutting and making). It might be similar for other East Asian tailors since they do share many skills, and I've also seen in a Japanese suit construction book using similar method.

Basically it's just "scrape" the starch glue onto the rectangular silky lining fabric (with a specific wood/bamboo palette-knife-like tool, or just simply something with a hard, straight and thin edge like a card) before cut it in to two for two welts, and wait it dry. It will be stiffer and ready to be cut into two. This makes it easier to be cut and fold, and its edge won't fray. Later steps are just the same for making a double welt inner pocket. With this method Chinese tailors were able to some thin and clean piping on inner pockets.

Some examples:
One of my own jacket (I hide the flap inside for a better look):


Very first jacket that I made for myself two years ago, not beautiful, but it did make things easier at that time:



My grandfathers Mao suit, made in 1980s:




From Jeffery Diduch's blog:


In earlier days there's some more extremely thin examples. Some examples that I've seen:

From the famous Baromon, Shanghai, 1950s:


Made in 1949, from Wuhan:

[TTailor]

Does the starch discolor the fabric at all?
Stabilizing some fabrics is essential to handing them well.

[OlymposPartizanos]

Does the starch discolor the fabric at all?
Stabilizing some fabrics is essential to handing them well.

It would be a bit white starch colour at the wrong side but mostly won't effect the right side of fabric.
Here's a video from a Taiwan tailor doing this process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRplf9yby3s

[Gerry]

This subject came up a while ago and the first video linked shows glue being used for a double-piping pocket:

https://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php/topic,1191.0.html

[Hendrick]

Does the starch discolor the fabric at all?
Stabilizing some fabrics is essential to handing them well.

Choose you starch carefully. Some starch is made of potato flower, some from white rice flower.

Potato based flower, when not brushed and beaten out totally will turn yellowish with time, as you can often see in waistbands and waistcoat parts in vintage garments. Rice based starch is safer and easier to brush out but can easyly burn brown when pressed dry. Starches are protein based, so will easily bind with protein based fibers, especially woolens. Do not use potato based starch on dense, dark coloured cottons such as sateens because they will cause shading...

Cheers, Hendrick

[jruley]

Choose you starch carefully. Some starch is made of potato flower, some from white rice flower.

Cheers, Hendrick

Anyone for pasta based starch?

Seriously - I believe my wife saved the water from a batch of spaghetti and used it to starch my reenactment shirt collar and cuffs at least once.  Worked quite well IIRC.

[Schneiderfrei]

Starches are protein based,

I don't want to sound arguementative, but starches by definition are carbohyrates, sugars. They will burn, of course, into caramel.

[Hendrick]

Starches are protein based,

I don't want to sound arguementative, but starches by definition are carbohyrates, sugars. They will burn, of course, into caramel.

I use "crackfree" (no kidding), the packaging says it is made of rice flower and warns for burns... possibly what Hunter uses these days...

Years ago, I got a can of finishing starch from a textile mill that was used as a finishing compound for cotton fabrics, they called it liquid potato and said that it was what gives cotton its'typical smell

Nowadays I use spray cans, easier, but "crackfree is still available as dry powder

heers, Hendrick

[Schneiderfrei]

So that's what that smell is! I know it.

[Hendrick]

So that's what that smell is! I know it.

Yes, wonderful smell, like an old jeans store

[Stoated]

This subject came up a while ago and the first video linked shows glue being used for a double-piping pocket:

https://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php/topic,1191.0.html

Interestingly I think the glue made up in that video isn't starch, it appears to be a wheatpaste glue. The step of leaving it sitting in the boiling water is to reduce the starch content relative to the gluten.
It's closer to spaghetti than I would have guessed.

[Gerry]

Interestingly I think the glue made up in that video isn't starch, it appears to be a wheatpaste glue. The step of leaving it sitting in the boiling water is to reduce the starch content relative to the gluten.
It's closer to spaghetti than I would have guessed.

Yes, it is wheat based. I took a screen shot then flipped the image to reveal the English text that was showing through from the back: "Ingredient Wheat". Also at the top, it appears to say "milled with high quality wheat" (you'll have to blow up the image a fair bit to see it).



The fact that it's glue still means it will stiffen the cloth, simply by making the fibres more rigid. Though this type of glue is primarily used for basting, not starching. I use paper glue (Prit, Uhu etc) occasionally as an alternative to thread basting, especially when shirt making.

[OlymposPartizanos]

This subject came up a while ago and the first video linked shows glue being used for a double-piping pocket:

https://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php/topic,1191.0.html

Interestingly I think the glue made up in that video isn't starch, it appears to be a wheatpaste glue. The step of leaving it sitting in the boiling water is to reduce the starch content relative to the gluten.
It's closer to spaghetti than I would have guessed.

Yes, and there's nearly no difference with using starch since it's just the starch in flour that is working, so still "starch glue". At least in Chinese we normally don't differentiate them.