Best seams to use sewing silnylon

I want an UL set of no frill rain paints. Lite, packable and I don't care if they breath. What seam would be best for sewing them and then of course sealing the seams... a flat fell seam, a regular flat seam or something else. As always thanks for any help you can offer.

jimmyb

I use a flat-felled seam wherever possible. It is stronger, neater and is less likely to open up under tension. It is also easier to seal and will stay sealed longer than will a straight seam because there is less tension on the thread holes.

Pika, very helpful.

jimmyb

Flat felled seams are definitely the best....but I want to see you do it on a pair of rain pants.

Yes, FinallyME, after thinking about it, it could be difficult to get down the full length of a pant leg I was looking at jacket sleeves made with a French seam and that looked like a decent option. What seam would you suggest?

On another note I found I am in the market for another machine. The HD one I use for canvas, Heavy webbing ect. just wont cut it for doing the light weight fabrics so I made the mistake of looking at some machines at the Janome dealer. Boy they had some reeeally nice stuff. Makes my single stich HD machine look like a cinder block...at least until you go to stich 8 layers of Marine Sunbrella.

If you work carefully and slowly, you can use a flat-felled seam in the leg of wind or rain pants or shirt sleeves. Practice a little ahead of time using scrap fabric. It will seem awkward and clumsy at first, "sewing in the hole", but it gets easier the more you do.

Well Im willing to give it a try. Pant leg dia. I assume will be the deciding factor...besides sewing skill of course. Easy to cut a sample and experiment with some cheap fabric.

Thanks again guys, jimmyb

Seems like it would be fine to do a mock felled seam on the inseam (and much easier). Unless you're making your rain pants really snug, there should not be a lot of stress on that seam.

Like everyone said...give it a go. It just won't be easy. But then again, you might be better than me. If that fails, just do a normal straight stitch and turn inside out. You can also do a straight stitch, and then hand stitch the flat fell part.

Last year for our tax return, I got my wife a Pfaff Ambition 1.0. It has been a dream, except it won't do supper heavy stuff. Sometimes I wish I had a heavy duty machine. I have my brother on the lookout for me. He is a sewing machine dealer and got us the Pfaff at wholesale.

I am more concerned about sealing the seems as Im using silnylon and I cant seam tape them so I want as few stich holes as possible thru to the outside. I see many pieces of clothing that are simply a straight stich with an overstich on the edge like a serger type stiching. The new machine I just bought has that stich available and I believe that would be pretty strong and easiest to seal. Any thoughts?

I have a HD walking foot machine that I bought for canvas work and there is a Huge difference when sewing the heavy stuff. It will simply hammer through stacks of material with seemingly no effort. However it just cant handle the fine fabrics with any finesse. That's why I bought the regular home machine. The pfaff looks like a really nice machine...a little out of my budget though. I ended up with a Janome 7330 from a local dealer. The reviews were very good and it seems to have just enough stiches and automation for me now. Hope I made a wise choice. When your bro finds you a HD machine I think you will be very happy having both.

jimmyb

Just a thought to consider...

Rain SKIRTS have ben used by some ultralighters and would be easier to sew. To see if this could work for you, start with a plastic trash bag. If you bought the kind with a drwastring top, you could just cut open the bottom. The skirt would actually allow some breathing that silnylon pants can't. A few hikes in the rain would allow you do decide if a rain skirt is for you, from there decide whether to keep the plastic bag or sew a silnylon skirt. This may even help you decide whether or not non-breathable pants are for you.

Thanks CM. We started out thinking about the skirts but in a colder rain we thought the added protection of the full length pants might be better for the little extra weight. We are using precip pants over long underwear for winter hiking which is working great for us but we could do better weight wise in the 3 seasons. Im hoping the non breathable aspect will not be too bad on the lower half. If so I can hem them to the knees at about board short level and try that, or put them into service while sailing. Light weight would be better if one of us ever ended up in the water God forbid. Anyway its all just a cheap experiment at this time. Just a few bucks for materials and my time honing sewing skills. Thanks for your reply.

jimmyb

I have no problem with non-breathable (silnylon) rain pants. If there is sweating, it will be around the waist and hips, and you might want to provide some ventilation there.

The only problems I have is when it's warm and wet and I'm actively hiking. If it's warm, I leave off my rain jacket and pants and just get wet, since my body heat will dry my nylon hiking pants and shirt (or my baselayer top) in 15-20 minutes. When it's warm, even breathable rain gear produces a sauna effect that leaves me wetter than the rain. YMMV, of course.

Definitely use a flat fell seam for the crotch even if you don't for the sides. As you probably know, cheap trousers inevitably give way in that area first!

Follow up on my Silnylon rain pants project.

Having no better alternative we ordered a Green Peppers pattern. I took some cheap scrap material and did a quick and dirty mock up. We both thought the fit was a little to tight so we took some measurements from our preclip pants and also managed quite nicely to convert the pattern into a two piece pattern instead of a 4 piece pattern. That made it possible to eliminate the two large outside seams. Less places to seal, leak or both.

The choice of a flat felled seam worked very well on the inseam of the pant leg. It is a little slow in sewing and I had help from my better half in managing the material after the needle but the result was a beautifully even set of top stiches. I was very happy. I will finish the 2 legs together with a FF seam as well.

Taking a break for dinner and back for more on the other pant leg. Will have to decide on elastic for waist hem. The pant legs are cut a little wider than straight leg jeans and will get a small Velcro cinch like a jacket wrist closure in case for some reason we want to cinch them tight. Pants should come in at about 3 oz per pair.

to all who posted with help on this small project. It has been very helpful.

jimmyb