A question about selvedges

[Calgacus]

Hi rabble,

I wonder, can anyone tell me which tartan mills produce cloth with a woven selvedge, as opposed to a tuck selvedge?

Thanks,

Richard.

[HarveyH]

Richard

This is not as straight forward question as it might seem.

Just to be clear about the terms:

A woven selvedge (sometimes selvage in the US) is an edge to the cloth created by a continuous weft thread looping round at the edge of the cloth.

A tuck selvedge is one created on a loom which cuts the thread and "tucks" the cut thread back into the cloth about 1/2 an inch into the edge of the cloth.

This is nothing to do with hems - just in case people get confused, but to do with the clean cloth edge (self edge).

A woven selvedge was all that was possible on older sorts of looms where continuous weft threads loop back and forth between the warp. You get an edge which is the same thickness of the rest of the cloth but there can be a slight (or not so slight) waviness to the edge of the cloth.

A tuck selvedge, because of the cut thread being tucked in, forms a slightly thicker edge. On thinner fabric this can be an issue but with the sort of weights of kilt cloth you end up with a good firm edge. You can feel the cloth is very slightly thicker but you do get a very clean edge which is useful for a kilt.

The modern looms, which create a tuck selvedge, can also be run much faster and so the cloth can be produced more economically. I am not convinced that one is necessarily better than the other and the economics of a modern loom can make a good worsted kilt cloth at lower cost.

But you asked about the practices of different mills.

Some mills have a mixture of looms and depending on what cloth is produced they may use a loom producing a woven or a tuck selvedge - and you may have no say in the matter. As far as I am aware Marton Mills use a tuck selvedge, Lochcarron likewise. House of Edgar is a bit of a mix. The cloth I have seen from Dalgleish has a woven selvedge, but there were a number of comments on here about the poor selvedge when the first run of the Cthulu tartan was produced. I have recently seen some cloth from Andrew Elliot Ltd which had a superb woven selvedge.

No doubt different kiltmakers on here will have an opinion about the merits one way or the other. But as long as there is a good clean edge on the kilt I leave that sort of decision to my kiltmaker and his discussions with the various mills.

Does that help?

[ASinclair]

Richard,

Strathmore Woollen Company tartan has a woven selvedge.

[Kilted Cole]

Sorry to give you only a link rather than a simple explanation. but I believe Mr. Newsome has the best explanation that I have seen in this link.
http://www.newhousehighland.com/selvage.html

[figheadair]

I don't like the term 'tucked selvedge' which is really a misnomer. If the term selvedge was reserved solely for a woven one then we might have seen traditional mills doing better than they have. More information on types of selvedge is here.

[Calgacus]

Thank you for the information so far. I ask because I would prefer to have a woven selvedge on my new kilt (so long as it is well made) but am rather in the dark about which cloths come with a woven selvedge and which come with a tucked. It's complicated by the fact that I also want a heavyweight kilt in a particular tartan, so I realise not all mills will make what I want. I know of two mills already who make the tartan I want, namely Lochcarron and D.C. Dalgleish, but I want to know if I have missed some of the smaller producers.

Of the two kilts I currently own, one is a 16oz tucked (Lochcarron) and the other is a 13oz woven, of unknown origin. I prefer the woven selvedge, which by the way is perfectly straight with no waviness.

[Downunder Kilt]

House of Edgar have woven selvedge in their 16oz clan, 13oz clan & rare and 18oz regimental ranges apart from the nevis tartans. It may help if you let us know what tartan you are after. Cheers

[Calgacus]

House of Edgar have woven selvedge in their 16oz clan, 13oz clan & rare and 18oz regimental ranges apart from the nevis tartans. It may help if you let us know what tartan you are after. Cheers

It's Johnstone (or Johnston) but in the 'weathered' palette.

[ForresterModern]

As stated above the traditional woven selvedge is often the cleanest edge, without edge thickening of the tuck selvedge made by the short sections of excess thread turned over and tucked back in before being cut off. But, depending on the mill and even the individual tartan run, traditional selvedge can suffer from variable tensions in the thread lines that can give that slightly wavy edge effect. Tuck in selvedge does not suffer that effect, but rather suffers the aforementioned edge thickening, and the visibility of the tuck in thread ends may be more noticeable depending on how skillfully the mill places the cut edge of the tucked threads into an existing color change line in the tartan, as well as how tightly they cut those ends to the rest of the tartan. In the samples I have seen Strathmore, Dalgleish, and House of Edgar seem most successful at getting good results from the standard selvedge, while Lochcarron seems to get the best results from the tuck in selvedge. HOE's Nevis and Many of Marton Mills tuck ins can have very visible excess thread lines. Some of the lighter weight woven selvedges seem to suffer more from the wavy effect than their heavyweight counterparts. But with either it can be a luck of the draw with whatever piece of fabric in whatever tartan you happen to get, regardless of which mill it comes from. IMHO of what I have seen Strathmore and Lochcarron seem to be the most consistently reliable of each type, but then I am not a kiltmaker and have not seen the large numbers of different tartans in different weights from each of the different mills. I have one Batley kilt in 13 oz as well as a piece of 16 oz tartan from them---the thirteen seems to be woven edge while the 16 is definitely a slightly ragged tuck in edge. There are not really a whole lot of other "smaller" mills out there--I can only think of one, and then not even by name (Islay mills possibly?)---it is the one that several years ago wove the loose tartan for the Braveheart movie---unless you start counting those making harris tweed type tartan cloth.

[RockyR]

Sorry Peter for using the terminology, but I am going to for the purposes of this thread as they are terms people understand. Of the mills that STOCK tartan cloth, here are the selvedges:

DC Dalgliesh: Wrap (woven) selvedge
Strathmore: BOTH Wrap (woven) AND Tuck selvedge
HOE: BOTH Wrap (woven) on normal MW, HW and Reg Weight cloth and TUCK on Nevis and Hebridean ranges
Lochcarron: BOTH Wrap (woven) on an occasional piece or IF requested when weaving a large quantity AND Tuck (the majority of what they produce)
Marton Mills: Tuck only
Batleys: Tuck only
Welsh Tartan Centre: FRINGED (must be hemmed)

It's also worth mentioning that for the mills who use BOTH, if you're just buying a stock piece of cloth (a few yards), you WILL NOT be able to specify what type of selvedge you want. If you order a half piece (30 M) or a full piece (60 M) of cloth as a custom weave, you can specify what type of selvedge is used (though it MAY cost you more money per meter).