Needle wear

Just read an advertisement for a "spiral eye" needle; one of the harped-on points was that the needle wasn't plated, so you could sharpen it with an emery board.

Three things raised my eyebrows.

(1) With an EMERY BOARD?

(2) How does plating stop you from honing a needle? If it's because you don't want to grind the plating off, the plating on a worn-dull needle is already gone anyway.

(3) I've bent and broken and lost hand-sewing needles, but I don't recall ever *blunting* one.

Hence this post: have any of you ever worn the point off a hand-sewing needle?

Joy Beeson

Reply to
Joy Beeson
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I don't think so, but I've worn the shank on a few.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Not on a hand-sewing needle, but some really old sewing machines had a small honing stone for sharpening the machine needle. For folks who own an old machine that doesn't take a standard 15 x 1 needle, and have a hard time finding needles to fit (source is usually old Boye general store cases with the little wooden tubes), sharpening a needle is often the way to go. The stones on the machine are set to turn with the treadle similar to a bobbin winder.

For hand-sewing needles, I use the little emery "strawberry" on the pin cushion.

Reply to
Pogonip

I certainly haven't, but I do know that in couture workshops where they would, the "hands" use a little strawberry-shaped thing filled with very, very fine emery *powder*, and push their needles into it regularly to sharpen them...

Reply to
Sparafucile

Reply to
RedDog

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