Making a Silk-fabric(?) Sail

[modeller_masa]

*** I received a reply that the material I used for sail making isn't the silkspan tissue paper made from wood fiber, but silk from silkworm. I temporarily changed the main title, and I may fix contents later when I find and confirm the wooden silkspan. 

 

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Hello, I made the first successful silkspan sail. 😆 I would like to share my knowhow.

 

I followed below lectures. Many thanks to Tom Lauria and John Tilley.

 

 

 

http://modelshipworldforum.com/ship-model-rigging-and-sails.php

 

 

 

I found a hundred species of silk fabrics at the local cloth market. Fortunately, my hunt finished at once.  

 

The silk "span" is a half-flexible fabric. I guess I can use other pure silk fabrics if I don't need furled sails. 

 

I also compared the silkspan with my stock of cotton fabrics. The cotton regular and fine are my favorites and I planned to use them for my current project. 

 

I believe that everyone'll fall in love with the silkspan, but it is hard to sew with a sewing machine. 

 

Here is another comparison. There are many factors that define characteristics of fabric: thickness of threads, weaving method, density, etcs. I'm not an expert on the area, so I'm just showing what I can diagnose.

 

The silkspan is just outstanding. I can't count the threads of it. I guess it is a kind of napkin.

 

OK, let's dye it. I followed the video instruction.

 

 

I found a color uniformity issue. When I dried the dyed silkspan, the wet acrylic paint ran down and made thin area. I didn't want the side effect, so I decided to make a frame.

 

Actually, I purchased photo frames at $1.  

 

I reinforced it with masking tape. The PVA bond isn't enough to hold the silkspan because acrylic paint is water based paint.

Ready.

Because original silkspan is a flexible fabric, wrinkles are unavoidable. I tried to force them out.

 

At this time, I dried it horizontally.

 

The result is just what I wanted. 😎 I'll cut out the edges and use only uniformed area.

 

I found a side effect of the dish dryer drying. Don't use a dish dryer and let the frame naturally dry.

 

Don't forget that all sails must have the same color! Because I mixed acrylic paints, I prepared two big size frames for one pass work.

 

Summary

* Requirements

  - Cheap photoframes

  - Acrylic paints (White+yellow?)

  - Water spray

  - Silkspan (It depends on your country's market conditions.)

 

Have a good sail.  

Edited July 7, 2022 by modeller_masa

[Dziadeczek]

There is available a very good little brochure by David Antscherl on making model sails from silkspan, if you decide to use this medium.

[modeller_masa]

Hello, Dziadeczek. Unfortunately, I can't see additional useful information from the guide. I'll buy the complete bundle for future scratch building when the publisher sells the brochure again. 

 

// I mean, it is out of stock now. I definitely wanted the book and was disapointed that the little brochure didn't receive an ISBN, which means that it isn't on Amazon or Abebooks.

Edited July 5, 2022 by modeller_masa

[druxey]

To use Silkspan, it must first be wetted and stretched like watercolor paper. If you do not do this properly, wrinkles are inevitable!

[modeller_masa]

Update : I added a heat curing progress after drying. I followed a tip for dyeing silk with water based paints.

 

I couldn't be satisfied with 'big' frames. Managing color uniformity without a heater is so difficult. I started to think the furled sail is much better.

 

I guess that one of the secret receipts is tension. I'll reinforce the frame like a silkscreen painting. I'll also try acrylic paint spray for less water and even painting.

[allanyed]

Modeler Masa,

Thank you for the above, it is very well studied and thought out, but I think the name of the subject might be misleading.   The trials you did seem to use cloth, not silkspan, which is tissue paper made from wood fiber and acts differently than cloth.

Allan

 

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by allanyed

[modeller_masa]

Thanks for the information, Allan. I'll research the tissue paper again.

[modeller_masa]

LOL... I already have the silkspan tissue...

 

I discovered that the silkspan is known by many different names in different countries. The silkspan in Korea is called "Korean paper" (pronounced as "Han-ji"), and it is very popular for traditional painting and wallpaper. In China, the same paper is called 'Xuan paper' (pronounced as xuān-zhǐ, and xuan is a name of a city in China) and also called 'Japanese paper' in Japan (pronounced as ko-zo-ga-mi, and ko-zo is a name of wood.)

 

The traditional papers have relatively rough and visible fibers in general, so I bought specially produced silkspan tissue made in Germany for scale models, which wefalck recommended. ( Link : https://www.modulor.de/en/modelspan-tissue-white.html )

 

 

The left is a Hanji, which is very popular in Korea. Unfortunately, the paper shows lots of visible 'branch fibers', so it isn't good to express sails. The right is a paper foil, which is silicon-coated tissue for kitchen. I don't think it absorbs water or solvent paint well.

 

I'm a bit exhausted from building the "silk fabric" sails, so I'll update a new test with "the real silkspan" when I build the next ship.

[wefalck]

I used silk fabric for model airplanes in the past, I think it was 14 g/m2. I put the stuff into a cardboard frame and worked/dried it horizontally, so no issues with not uniform paint distribution.

 

While I don't sew sails anymore, this silk fabric sews better, when you back it up temporarily with some silkpaper - paper is less prone to be distorted when transported through a sewing machine.

[Roger Pellett]

Many years ago there was a shop note in the Journal about painting flags using Japanese Rice Paper.  I bought some and had good luck making the flags for my last model.  This is a very light weight almost translucent acid free tissue paper.  The Hanji material got me wondering if the Rice Paper might not be a good material for sails.