Sipsey Street Irregulars: Praxis: A Patch Question

Monday, March 23, 2009

Praxis: A Patch Question

Guys and gals,

I just received this technical question:

Hey Mike,

I know that you're busy writing your book, but I have a question that you may be able to answer. I want to put the hook side of velcro on the back of the patches so they can be moved around. Do you know of a product that does not have to be sewn directly to the patch? Thanks in advance.

G.

Suggestions?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...: Any one thinking of these as magnetized bumper stickers?; March 23, 2009 at 8:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Go to a fabric store....there's hook & loop fabric of all types usually around...it's ALL the rage!

If that doesn't work, get some fabric adhesive and DIY.; March 23, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...: There is a cement available in the crafts department of places like Wal-mart, as well as regualr crafts stores, called ( I THINK) E-6000. Comes in a silver tube with black print on it, sells for about four dollars. It is made for use on fabric, including Velcro, and it will hold anything to anything ( fabric wise) just about forever.
BTW - if a patch has any of the 'iron on' glue stuff on the back, you need to flex the patch a few dozen times, or rough the back up with sandpaper, so that the cement can reach the cloth of the patch. Follow the directions, use a clothes pin or two if you need to clamp everything and you should be good to go.
All the best -
J3 / Para Pacem.; March 23, 2009 at 9:13 AM
jon said...: absolutely. i use shoe goop for attaching velcro to the back of the patch.

the goop won't take too well to some iron-on patches, but you can remove the iron-on backing by ironing the patch to a piece of scrap fabric and then yanking it off before it cools.; March 23, 2009 at 9:16 AM
pdxr13 said...: The "patch solution" can be any combination of peel-n-stick velcro, machine sewing, adhesive from a tube, or iron-on adhesive.

Drawbacks of the various methods:

Peel-n-stick velcro- doesn't hold up to laundering well (removing patches REQUIRED for washing). Edges curl, allowing dirt to adhere to adhesive, never sticking there again. Velcro on the uniform should be sewn in all cases.

Machine sewing: The best single solution. Have your local off-base sewing shop add velcro to your patch and uniform in the desired places. Pre-pin for best results and specify color of thread (black, green, etc.) Cost is very reasonable compared to poking a needle through a thumb.

Adhesive from a tube: some products work well, like instant hemming fluid. Some not so well, harden to rock-like slab on your uniform and self-peel as you move.

Iron-on adhesive: Same caution as peel-n-stick, as well as a note to test a thread of the patch for melting at the temp used. Shining over-ironed patches look BAD.

I'm paying for my local seamstress to sew patches on with high-strength fine nylon thread in a tight straight stitch, just inside the edge whipping on the patch and a zig-zag pattern on the loop-side uniform velcro to keep the edges from fraying and stick the middle securely to the material. For her, velcro is much easier than the perfection required of direct sewing to the uniform (rotation/alignment/flatness), thus $3 per patch when I supply velcro in pre-cut, pre-pinned format, more if I just turn over patches and uniforms with instructions.

Cheers.; March 23, 2009 at 9:25 AM
Anonymous said...: There is an "industrial strength" glue velcro duo available at WalMart in the craft section that has a VERY strong adhesive. I have used it on flexible stuff before with excellent results. I don't have the brand handy at the moment so will have to look it up when I get home.; March 23, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Google "iron-on velcro"...
They also have a solvent(MEK)-activated adhesive-backed version

Can we agree on placement of patch for best recognition - perhaps left shoulder?

III; March 23, 2009 at 11:21 AM
drjim said...: I've seen both sticky-back Velcro, and iron-on Velcro, but I can't vouch for how well they hold up.
Maybe try a place like JoAnne's fabrics?
Better yet, I'll ask my girlfriend!; March 23, 2009 at 11:59 AM
Anonymous said...: Looks good to me. Where can I get one?; March 23, 2009 at 12:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Where can I get one?; March 23, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Anonymous said...: You can pick up packages of stick on velcro at places like Walmart in their sewing section. The stuff works fine except don't expect it to last as long as if it were sewn on permanently. But if you don't want to sew the velcro on you're going to have to sacrifice longevity. Best of luck.; March 23, 2009 at 3:53 PM
Anonymous said...: I will get two of them when they are ready. One mounted above each of the exhaust pipes on my Honda motorcycle. I prefer these patches over any fancy paintwork and art that other riders like to have on their saddlebags and fuel tanks. Nice, small, simple, and gets the message across.; March 23, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Thanks for all of the input, and thank you Mike for posting my question. I guess I need to find me a mistress, I mean seamstress.

G III; March 23, 2009 at 7:10 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Monday, March 23, 2009

Praxis: A Patch Question

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