Sil Nylon Cutting

Some people do better with a rotary cutter. I do OK with a single-edge razor blade. That way, you don't really need to pick the fabric up away from your cutting table.

A clothing expert tells me that it is best to keep the fabric pressed down tightly on the cutting table, and she uses a heavy cast-iron bacon press for that.

–B.G.–

Thanks Bob for your quick supply. A cutting table and rotary cutter are in my future but will still need scissors and for now just want a pair to practice getting to know and use my machine. Only time will tell what I end up liking.

silnylon is easy to cut

if you use scissors, don't use them to cut other things like paper. I wouldn't use fabric scissors to cut webbing either. Then you can just push the scissors through the fabric without having to move the handle up and down.

I tend to violate this rule. My scissors are always dull. I'm trying to do better though.

Short of a real cutting table, I have also used a very large piece of cardboard. I got a cardboard packing box that was about a 5-foot cube. That made me some 5-foot cutting boards that are disposable. I can use double-stick tape to hold silnylon pieces in place for cutting.

–B.G.–

What you want are 'bent handled trimmers'. The bent handle lets you use them with the bottom blade on the table. The best way to do single layer cutting is trace your pattern onto the fabric (or mark onto the fabric, if you're working from measurements), and then cut just inside the lines. You need to keep the fabric and pattern from moving when you're tracing, but once it's traced, you can move it around. Weights are good for that. You can get purpose built weights, or improvise (soup cans work well). (Assuming it's not something that stretches. The stuff people make gear out of is pretty stable, and silnylon is certainly stable.) I've done a lot of marking on my living room floor, and then taken the work somewhere more comfortable for cutting.

I like Mundial's industrial forged shears. I prefer the 490 series, which have a regular edge, not the knife edged 498 version, but that's largely matter of preference. I've got pairs in 10" and 12", and use the 12" most often. I do have a pair of 8" shears; I never use them, they're too small. That's an important point, a pair of shears that fit your hands, and which you can open properly are the right size. I can cut surprisingly complex shapes accurately with the 12" shears (and the 14.5" ones I need to get repaired). A smaller pair of scissors for use while sewing, and for small sniping is also a requirement. The 490s are just outside your price range, but are probably the cheapest good option.

Jeff,
A good and readily available pair of shears is Fiskars. They are sold at Walmart and many sewing stores, and come in both right and left handed versions. The company also makes a sharpener that you just stick the shears in and use a cutting motion. I use the sharpener constantly to keep the shears sharp enough to cut just by sliding through the fabric, as was mentioned. If you have a steady hand, with a little practice, you can cut on a line, or a constant distance outside a line to provide a seam allowance.

Inexpensive ping-pong tables make good cutting tables and often fold up and slide against a wall on casters. They run about 5 feet wide by 9 feet long, wide enough for the high HH silnylon coming from Asia. But the cheapest ones are all composite particle board and will eventually sag in the middle, especially in moist basements, which is a problem for accurate cutting. My next one will have some plywood or something in it to keep the surface flat longer.

Any good sharp scissors will work fine.
Yes, don't cut, just 'slice' the scissors through the fabric.
Yes, keep your fabric scissors just for fabric.

And maybe think that a good pair of sharp fabric scissors is, like any other tool, worth spending a wee bit of money on. (But don't go overboard!)

Cheers

I use a soldering iron to cut silnylon. Done on glass, with a metal ruler. Seals and cuts all at once.

Steve

you can get a 4' x 6' cutting at @ cuttingmats.com and that will do you real well.
rotarty cutters are very sweet, but , you need the mat to make them work.
the fiskars angeled hand cutter is the nicest of the affordable ones.
45mm rotary blades are $1.49 ea on ebay.
the olfa circle cutter works sweet, and you can extend it to whatever size you may desire using wood (ie, a paint stick).

marking with a felt pen and cutting with scissors works on sil nylon too, but it you do enough of it, the rotary cutter is better.

i personally do not worry a great deal about edge sealing with sil, as the coating rather holds most of it together. and anyway, it's only a stuff sack, and it's sewn several times.

if it's none coated material, then i heat cut with a soldering iron. PRACTICE first if working on something spendy, like a tent.

i made bean bags out of sil for weights. you can toss them around with impunity and not break things in the house.