First, what the heck is that in the picture above?  Read on… we’ll get to that.

Effectively managing limited resources is the hallmark of a successful business. If you’ve successfully navigated the last few years, congratulations! You have managed limited resources effectively.

When it comes to limited resources, we are always asking ourselves how can we do better? Without establishing a windfarm or solar farm, for example, how can a small manufacturer work to conserve natural resources?  At W.F. Lake Corp., we’ve already made all the obvious moves, including increased insulation, sealing off air leaks, new and more efficient motors and drives, recapturing excess heat, LED lighting, recycling, etc…

So, how else can a small manufacturer of PTFE coated fiberglass products contribute to better outcomes?  How about focusing more keenly on something that successful manufacturers have been doing all along… re-use, re-cycle, re-pair, re-capture.

As you may have read in my post on shops, we have always had our own fabrication and maintenance shop. We intimately understand all the maintenance and repair needs of each unique piece of equipment we own. When we do take a piece of equipment off-line, we will break it down carefully and hang onto any parts that can be used as spares in other equipment.  Even the steel, for example, gets used again if it makes sense to keep it. Re-use beats recycle every time (and what doesn’t make sense to salvage goes to the recycler, of course). Rebuilding an electric motor and placing it in “spares” saves lots of resources… think of the energy, landfill space, transportation fuels, etc., that are NOT consumed when a simple rebuild / re-use happens.

We also take care to optimize the use of energy in our operations. Producing PTFE coated fiberglass products (including PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads, fabrics, adhesive tapes, and PTFE coated fiberglass belts) requires heat.  We are fortunate to have clean and abundant natural gas available as an energy source for our coating operation. By moving air thoughtfully throughout the facility and recapturing heat, we rarely need to run the overhead heaters here in our cold Northern New York winters. We conserve lots of this limited natural resource by making the most of what we do consume.

So, what about that picture? It’s a scissors sharpener! A very cost effective/green activity is simply sharpening scissors rather than throwing them in the recycle bin.  As mentioned, we manufacture a wide variety of PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads, PTFE coated Kevlar* sewing threads and PTFE coated fiberglass yarns.  You can imagine how often we use scissors here and how tough fiberglass and Kevlar* are on the cutting edges. Tossing dull scissors in the recycle bin is neither “green” nor cost effective.  Sharpening scissors in-house makes sense from a “green” standpoint and a financial standpoint.  It may seem inconsequential but keeping small items out of the landfill or recycle bin adds up over time.

Manufacturers have particular interest in being as efficient as possible in their every-day operations. Whether from the standpoint of shop / office supplies, raw materials, or energy, being efficient leads to “greener” outcomes every day. To do otherwise will not only adversely affect the environment, but it will also mean you aren’t going to survive very long as a viable business.

In my travels to customer’s and supplier’s manufacturing sites over the years (not so much lately), one thing I’ve always noticed was that most had a nice little maintenance / fabrication shop that was key to supporting their ongoing operations. They also had a couple of highly skilled mechanics or millwrights with extensive knowledge of the operation running these shops. For some reason, I always thought those were the coolest little “operations within an operation”, almost acting like their own little business. I’m proud to say that we, too, have a nice little maintenance / fabrication shop within our facility, staffed as noted above by a couple of highly skilled and uniquely talented individuals.

But why do these businesses have these neat (sometimes not-so-little) shops? Isn’t everything highly automated and run by computers? The answer is that even the highest tech operations need people with skills and aptitudes to keep them running. In our case (and that of many of our customers and suppliers), we are running a wide variety of equipment that has unique needs. While we have our share of digital controllers, those controllers are supporting very mechanical operations. The many and varied products we manufacture require lots of equipment performing operations that need to be completed quickly and accurately.

In one part of our facility, for example, we run ring twisters that use all kinds of speed controllers, relays and timers. The ring twisters themselves employ belts, drives, spindles, feed rolls, timing gears, bearings, pulleys, springs, etc. The actual twist operation itself hasn’t changed much in the last hundred years, but speeds, accuracy and input materials have. All of these parts need regular attention and sometimes complete rebuilding. The large number of PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads, PTFE coated Kevlar sewing threads, and PTFE coated fiberglass yarns that we manufacture means that we need lots of spindles operating effectively and efficiently. These ring twisters supply product to our coating towers, which in turn supply product to our high-speed winders and PTFE Coated Fiberglass Draw Cord and PTFE Coated Fiberglass Lacing Tape braiders. Our capabilities are many and varied and our level of vertical integration means that it must all run smoothly from start to finish. 

Every piece of equipment ultimately relies on our maintenance shop and mechanics to operate smoothly. Did I mention that our PTFE coated fiberglass fabric coating towers and converting equipment also supply our PTFE coated fiberglass belt operation?  Lots more equipment in that operation as well!

Some days you’ll catch our mechanics building simple carts or racks to improve material flow between departments, other days it’s a modification to an existing rewinder or a better mousetrap!  It’s always something and rarely boring.  These folks know what they’re doing and have an aptitude for it.  As with all our employees, we appreciate their efforts every day and we think it’s pretty cool to have our own maintenance / fabrication shop within our operation.

PTFE Coated Quartz Sewing Thread has some amazing properties. It operates continuously to 2,000 deg. F (1080 deg. C), making it among the highest temperature textile sewing threads available. Naturally, this performance capability comes at a cost…. but why?

Unlike fiberglass sewing thread, quartz thread is 99.9% pure silica! Fiberglass is nominally 60% silica and “silica” yarns are about 94% pure silica. The purity of Quartz yarn is what enables very high operating temperatures. Excellent tensile and flexural strength make it suitable for use as a sewing thread in extreme thermal insulation applications. Principle applications in yarn or fabric form are military in nature with the majority consumed for defense purposes.

But in this post, we’re talking about high temperature sewing thread applications. PTFE coated Fiberglass sewing threads operate at about 1000 deg. F (E-glass thread). S-2 Fiberglass sewing thread operates to 1400 deg. F (S-2 fiberglass sewing thread with Inconel wire or stainless steel wire enables “fail-safe” operation at very high temperatures, but that is not a pure fiber sewing thread). How about Silica sewing thread? Silica yarns operate to 1800 deg. F, so why not go with a silica sewing thread for all but the most extreme temperatures? The problem is that silica yarn does not exhibit the same tensile and flexural strength as quartz or fiberglass. Silica yarn is produced by chemically leaching fiberglass yarns, thus increasing operating temperatures but degrading tensile and flexural strength. To overcome this weakness, silica threads are often twisted with Rayon yarn to enable sewing, but the Rayon is quickly consumed upon exposure to higher operating temperatures. PTFE coated Quartz sewing thread does not require the addition of Rayon or any other fiber to enhance tensile and flexural strength. Quartz yarns are not simply leached fiberglass yarns, rather they are manufactured by first mining a very high purity quartz ore or sand.  That sand is further cleaned and then processed in high temperature furnaces to produce a clear fused silica rod which becomes the feedstock for manufacturing quartz fibers. You can see where the cost comes into play with a quartz yarn or sewing thread.

Interestingly, a few years ago we were asked to produce a high temperature sewing thread using a customer-supplied silica yarn without adding a Rayon fiber, instead attempting to rely on the PTFE coating to enhance “sewability” and flexural strength. The results were unimpressive. We found the finished Silica sewing thread was weaker than fiberglass or Quartz thread in tensile strength by a factor of 4 to 5 times and weaker in knot strength by a factor of 11 to 12 times! The customer thanked us for our efforts and dropped the project.

So, when it comes to the highest temperature sewing thread available without the use of sacrificial fibers, PTFE coated Quartz sewing thread deserves a close look despite its high cost. In some cases, there simply is no alternative. We currently manufacture 5 sizes from TFQ-12 to TFQ-30. (Remember, however, that in most cases the cost of the actual thread used in the final product represents a small fraction of the overall cost of the finished product… sounds like an opportunity for another blog post… wait, we already wrote that one, and you can find it here!).

Thanks for taking a moment to read our latest post. As always, let us know if you have any questions or would like to see a sample.

What qualifies as high temperature sewing thread? In our industry, we typically consider a high temperature sewing thread to operate above 400 deg. F ( 200 C). Lower temperature threads abound and are used in great volume in your everyday life. The thread in your cotton shirt can handle over 200 deg. F. However, that does not qualify as “High Temperature Thread” from an industrial standpoint. While 200 degrees is certainly hot to the touch and dangerous, for industrial sewing threads, 200 F (93 C) is considered low temperature.

As noted above, our industry considers high temperature sewing thread to be a thread that operates above 400 deg. F (200 C). At that point, your choice in materials, sizes, colors, and finishes begins to diminish rapidly. With colors, for example, we manufacture Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, among others, but we do not offer shamrock green, fern green and seaweed green!  Additionally, as temperature increases, your material choices and color options diminish even further. ”Sewability” typically decreases as well. The high temperature sewing thread we manufacture includes PTFE coated Para-aramids (Kevlar by DuPont), E-glass and S-2 glass fiberglass, Quartz and combinations of steel or Inconel wire with each of these fibers. Para-aramids require the least number of changes in the sewing process versus fiberglass or quartz but limit out in continuous operating temperature to about 450 F (204 C). The maximum temperature limit of any thread we manufacture is PTFE coated Quartz thread at 2,000 deg. F (1100 deg. C). As previously noted, we can twist into the thread up to 10 strands of stainless steel or Inconel wire to enhance the “fail-safe” working limit of the thread or to enhance static dissipation.

Of course, sewing with these threads demands adjustments to equipment and to your expectations of throughput! Slower sewing machine speeds are required along with other adjustments and accommodations. Some sewing tips for high temperature sewing threads can be found HERE. In the case of fiberglass and quartz sewing thread, PTFE coating enhances sewability and reduces the potential for breakage. It also enhances chemical resistance and the buildup of contaminates. We modify our PTFE coating to make colors and enhance UV resistance of Para-aramid threads.

We manufacture the industry’s widest range of high temperature PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads and PTFE coated para-aramid sewing threads. If our wide variety of products do not meet your unique needs, then remember that we have some unique capabilities that allow us to create all kinds of different combinations of materials to produce a specialty thread that meets your application parameters.

Of course, extreme operating temperatures also often come with extreme chemical exposures. In that case, our PTFE coating capabilities offer definite advantages to uncoated threads beyond enhancing sewability and reduced breakage. We’ll take a look at those advantages in another post.

When it comes to high temperature sewing thread, think of W.F. Lake Corp. first.  In the unlikely event we don’t currently manufacture the thread you need, we can quickly and cost effectively develop something to solve your most demanding high temperature sewing needs!

What drives new product development for a relatively small manufacturing business? In our experience, the bulk of new product development flows from existing customers’ needs.  In the case of W.F. Lake Corp., our ability to bring our many and diverse capabilities to bear are what lead to our successes with new product development (and therefore future growth). Equally important is the ability and desire to get samples into engineer’s hands as quickly and cost effectively as possible. In some cases, these new products are developed for a single application and remain in limited use.  In other cases, those unique properties required for a specific application are useful in a wide variety of other areas and, voila! We have a new product in our standard offering.  Many of our PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads and PTFE coated Kevlar sewing threads came about in this fashion.

But how did we come to have these capabilities in house?  For W.F. Lake Corp., it started early on with the philosophy that sensible vertical integration not only cuts down on supply chain issues, but also leads to synergies across many disciplines.  It gives us the unique ability to control scheduling of trials, use the varied raw material in our inventory and adjust processing parameters quickly. 

Of course, keeping the lines of communication open with customers and letting them know of your capabilities and willingness to work on development ideas is of utmost importance.  Customers must also feel that finding a solution to their needs is as important to us as it is to them!

A few years ago, we were asked to come up with a high temperature thread with a “fail-safe” built in for possible temperature excursions.  We came up with the idea of combining S-2 fiberglass with 3 ends of Inconel wire that would then be PTFE coated. We were already producing sewing thread with E-glass and stainless steel wire, so this wasn’t much of a reach for us.  Our ability to twist fiberglass threads in-house, and also PTFE coat them in-house, resulted in SGT-243IL being developed within a few weeks. Final approval came quickly and now this thread has become a standard item being regularly produced. 

Another example is as simple as offering a pigmented PTFE coated fiberglass sewing thread to enhance the visual appeal of a finished insulation jacket.  It happens that we run various pigments in other areas of our operation (PTFE coated fiberglass yarn and PTFE coated fiberglass fabric) and were able to choose the right pigment from our stock, enabling samples to be delivered within days. The resulting Black PTFE coated fiberglass sewing thread is also now a standard product.

We apply these same principles across all product disciplines, including  PTFE coated fiberglass fabrics and PTFE coated fiberglass belts, where we coat, slit, sew, heat seal, sheet, and fabricate a variety of products.  Combining those capabilities has resulted in some unique products that solve interesting processing requirements resulting in Custom Materials.

If you have an opportunity that requires a unique high temperature PTFE coated sewing thread, draw cord, fabric or belt or any combination thereof, zing us a note or call.  We stand ready to put our capabilities to work quickly and cost effectively for your needs.

Do you ever wonder if what you produce makes a difference in peoples’ lives or has a positive impact on the environment? Our products and your products are “green” by design. Working together with our valued customers, our products can and do have a positive impact on the environment and on the lives of others.

Here at W.F. Lake Corp. we produce a number of products that contribute to a better environmental outcome. A couple of the many examples follow:

Our PTFE coated fiberglass sewing thread used to sew filter bags used in flu gas filtration media. This is a difficult operating environment that few products are capable of handling, but our thread can take the punishment. The filter bag itself cleans particulate from the air stream before it can be released into the environment.  The PTFE coating allows for easy cleaning of the bag while enhancing chemical resistance and sewability.

Another example is in reduced energy consumption through insulation: Any time you can reduce energy consumption, the environment wins!  Our PTFE coated fiberglass sewing thread is used to sew high temperature insulation jackets for things like gas turbines, pipelines, rotary kilns, etc…. Wherever you live, you know that simple, effective insulation can dramatically reduce your energy consumption.  Imagine how much energy can be saved when properly insulating very high temperature industrial operations!  The threads we manufacture are capable of operating against the hot side facing of these items where other threads would immediately fail.  Our PTFE coated S-2 fiberglass sewing thread, for example, operates to 1400 deg. F, while our PTFE coated Quartz sewing thread withstands 2000 deg. F!  Not only can they operate at these extremes, they facilitate the reuse and repair of these same insulation jackets.  We all know that “reuse” and “repair” are far better action words than “replace” when it comes to the environment!  And by limiting heat loss, our thread contributes to longer operational life of sensors, thermocouples, instrumentation, electric motors, etc…

We are also proud to say that we manufacture products that help make life safer for others as well.  When it comes to operator safety, our PTFE coated fiberglass sewing thread and PTFE coated fiberglass draw cord is used to help protect operators from extreme temperatures and chemicals.  Insulation jackets sewn with our thread keep heat where it belongs, thus minimizing the chance of an accidental skin burn, while safety spray shields using our thread and draw cord help contain chemicals in the event of a valve or flange leak.  Our PTFE coated fiberglass threads and draw cords won’t burn or support flame, will not rot or support fungus and are virtually unaffected by most chemicals.  When our customers use our products to fabricate these products, they are helping others remain safe every day. 

We at W.F. Lake Corp. thank our customers that use our products to make life a little safer and the environment a little cleaner while providing good, meaningful jobs in their respective communities!

“Wow, that thread is a bargain!”… haven’t heard that in a while, but when it comes to PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads or draw cords (or any of our other PTFE coated sewing thread products) used to fabricate insulation jackets, safety spray shields, filter bags or other high performance products, our sewing threads are almost always the least expensive component of any finished product and perform perhaps the most critical function by holding it all together.

When manufacturing a safety spray shield or an insulated valve cover, certainly the fabric cover material itself (whether it is PTFE coated fiberglass or another high-performance material) is by far the most expensive component.  Take a look at the actual weight or length of sewing thread holding all of this together and consider that a typical yield for R753-18 is in the range of 2000 yards per pound… how many pounds are in that jacket (certainly less than one).  Then look at your cost of thread used versus cost of fabric used… not even close!  The same goes for the PTFE coated fiberglass draw cord holding the cover closed… not even close!

Certainly the “work-horse” of the high temperature sewing thread market is our PTFE coated sewing thread made with E-glass fiberglass.  This is our R753-series thread.  The cost per pound certainly increases when using S-2 glass threads or Quartz sewing threads, but the performance characteristics also improve dramatically, especially when it comes to maximum operating temperatures.  Then look at our PTFE coated Kevlar* threads where the cost may seem high, especially if we’ve twisted in one or more ends of Inconel wire…but that yield is in the range of 3,000 yards per pound…a pretty good deal we like to think!

From a manufacturing standpoint, it is worth noting that when yields are in the thousands of yards per pound of thread, processing time is also great.  Twisting time, coating time and of course raw material costs add up to what may seem like an expensive thread, but this is not cotton and much is demanded of it in the field.  We perform all twisting and coating functions in-house, which allows us to react quickly to new opportunities, make small runs and control costs as much as possible, but when you consider what this thread does and how relatively little of it is a cost component in the final product, you can’t help but think “Wow, that thread is a bargain!”.

                                                                                                                *Reg. DuPont

First, thank you for your continued support.  As an Essential Business, we have been in continuous operation since this pandemic began, following CDC guidelines with the safety of our employees and their families our #1 priority.  Now, as we continue to navigate through this pandemic response, we all may want to take another look at our operations and see what lessons can be applied to our businesses. 

Lessons have certainly been learned about supply chains at the national level concerning PPE equipment! As a manufacturing operation, consideration should certainly be given to the length of our own supply chains and the number of connecting links that hold it together. 

When it comes to PTFE coated fiberglass sewing threads, yarns, draw cords, and other products, rest assured that you are working with perhaps the shortest “supply chain” in the industry.  Our capabilities are second to none and give us maximum control of quality, lead times and costs. Our capabilities also allow for timely and cost-effective new product development.

Vertical integration has worked wonders for us.  Initially written in 2018, this blog post still applies today.  Vertical integration made sense to us years ago when we started this business (1991) and now seems more important than ever! Please take a moment to read that old post… and rest assured that when you work with W.F. Lake Corp., you are working with a company that removes as many links in the supply chain as we realistically can, with the vast majority of raw materials coming from the USA!