Having thread to tea :)

[JohnRatzenberger]

Lousy pun, but anyway my HMS Endeavour build. The Airfix kit came with a light tan thread, two sizes: running rigging as 0,3mm and standing rigging as 0,6mm. Both appeared to be the same type thread, pretty much a plain thread with no nylon or polyester. Two huge spools, more than enough - so far so good.

So I fired up a cuppa, double strength, and tossed both spools in for the same time, took 'em out to dry - results below.



The spool on the left is the 0,6, meant to be heavily tarred standing rigging, shrouds, etc. The spool on the right is the 0,3 and meant to be running rigging, lightly tarred or worn off.

Frankly both colors are probably exactly as I envisioned them EXCEPT they are reversed !

I suppose I could throw the 0,6 back into the tea-dye and get it darker but that doesn't fix the 0,3.

I have other threads, but I'm starting to get poly, nylon and stuff and many of them look shiny - one of them Revell )Victor tea'd up orange). All I used do with my threads is run them through beeswax for humidity control and they looked fine.

Any thoughts, ideas ? TIA.

[fredk]

Buy polyester thread in the colors you require.
Try Gutermanns thread

[PaulBradley]

Can you soak the .3 in plain hot water and see if some of the tannins leach out? Oyiclean is supposed to remove tea stains from clothes, so you might give that a try too.

[JamesPerrin]

or add a dash of milk