fib125 Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 I buy silicon skirt tabs in bulk from one of the big skirt manufacturers. Occasionally I'll receive an order where the strands of the tabs are stuck together. See below for a pretty extreme example of stuck strands. Sometimes it might just be a strand or 2 that are stuck. 90+% of the time the tabs are just fine, usually requiring no, or very little, separating. Has anyone developed a time-efficient process for separating the strands? I've tried separating by hand which is pretty slow. I've also tried using a comb, which has had some success, but can easily pull the strands from the ends if not careful. My guess is this is caused by how they were stored at the factory/warehouse. Thanks in advanced and happy Friday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cadman Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 I would like to know the answer to that as well. I get quite a bit of this and it is really annoying to get them this way. I think this happens is when the package is broken, and they have to repackage it. It really is a pain to straighten out. What I do is cut one end and run a wire thru the strands. It's slow but it works. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apdriver Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 I have trouble with it too. For me, it seems like certain colors mostly and all in the package are that way. Tedious separation is the only way I’ve been able to straighten them out. It’s almost like they weren’t cut through but the ones that stick feel a little different. Softer and stickier, in a way. I have a package that I’m working with now and will try a few things and report back. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apdriver Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 Didn’t take long as I had an idea from soft plastics that I thought may work. This didn’t separate 100% of the strands but really did a nice job straightening and separating most of the strands. I stuck a dozen in boiling water for a few minutes and brushed them out on my counter. My wife has a collection of hair brushes and I tried several. The ones with stiff bristles packed tightly together worked best. It sure makes them more useable in pretty quick order and makes them useable as opposed to throwing them out. The heat didn’t affect the silicone except to soften it a bit and loosen the hold from one strand to the other. P.S. Please don’t tell my wife!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cadman Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 10 minutes ago, Apdriver said: Didn’t take long as I had an idea from soft plastics that I thought may work. This didn’t separate 100% of the strands but really did a nice job straightening and separating most of the strands. I stuck a dozen in boiling water for a few minutes and brushed them out on my counter. My wife has a collection of hair brushes and I tried several. The ones with stiff bristles packed tightly together worked best. It sure makes them more useable in pretty quick order and makes them useable as opposed to throwing them out. The heat didn’t affect the silicone except to soften it a bit and loosen the hold from one strand to the other. P.S. Please don’t tell my wife!!!! Out of curiosity , did you have any glitter on the skirts? If you did, did the glitter fall off when you stuck the skirts in boiling water? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ute Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 This is the best way that I have found. Put them in a plastic sandwich bag and vigorously rub them between your hands. This will create static electricity that will cause the strands to seperate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apdriver Posted July 10, 2020 Report Share Posted July 10, 2020 49 minutes ago, cadman said: Out of curiosity , did you have any glitter on the skirts? If you did, did the glitter fall off when you stuck the skirts in boiling water? This was RF-55 from Rat trap. Motor oil/Black so it has black glitter in it. No I’ll affects that I can see. We take glitter up to 320 degrees in our plastisol without any problems so 212 degrees shouldn’t have any ill affects. I believe if a guy found the right brush you could get every strand straight and separated but was very satisfied with my results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted July 12, 2020 Report Share Posted July 12, 2020 Do they come apart when you stretch them and cut them with scissors? When I do that, the individual strands snap back and separate themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
