Sewing Thread Lubricant – Silicone Wax Emulsion

For sewing threads, lubrication and finishing (oiling) is a very important process. Since the sewing thread works at high speed, a good sewing thread oil must have three conditions:

A: Excellent lubrication B: Excellent thermal conductivity C: Excellent electrical conductivity

Choosing a good lubricant has a great impact on the lubricity of the sewing thread. Sewing thread lubricant of silicone wax based is the better lubricant agent.

There are two types of oiling for sewing thread, one is the dipping method and the other is the contact method.Under the impregnation method, the lubricants available include: cationic hydroxy silicone emulsions (cationic emulsions) and silicone wax emulsions. Under the contact method, the lubricant oil agents that can be used are: line silicone oil (line oil), 201 methyl silicone oil, and (anhydrous) silicone wax emulsion.

In principle, silicone wax emulsion can stay on the surface of the sewing thread for a longer period of time. Since the structure of sewing thread is fluffy, after oiling the thread, the oil agent can easily penetrate into the thread. If the oil gets inside the thread, how can the thread be well lubricated? Therefore, before the advent of silicone waxes, thread manufacturers increased the oiling rate to ensure the lubricity of the thread. However, there were problems with this. First of all, the production cost was increased. In addition, with more oil on the line, there was more work to clean the line. Also there is a problem in using, for example, embroidery thread to embroider a pattern, the use of thread is very intensive. Once there is more oil on the thread, when ironing, the oil will seep out and pollute other places. The silicone wax product is superior to the pure silicone oil. Because it is a compound of silicone oil and wax, silicone oil can easily penetrate into the inside of the line, but wax as a solid can stay on the surface of the line. Wax is also a good lubrication product. For different needs, silicone wax lubricants can be combined with antistatic components, softener components and so on. This way, not only does it provide good lubrication, but the other properties of the sewing thread can be substantially improved!

Sewing threads are always used on sewing machines. Nowadays, sewing threads are becoming faster and faster. The fastest can be up to 9,000 stitches per minute. At these speeds, the sewing machine needle is very hot. At high temperatures, the wax will carbonize and scorch. If the sewing thread is covered with wax, it will slowly coke in the needle hole when it passes through the sewing machine needle at high speed, and the end result will be a blocked needle hole and a thread stoppage. Silicon is heat resistant and has a cleaning effect. When the wax carbonizes in the needle hole, silicon can take it away in time and keep the needle hole open. Therefore, silicon wax compound can meet the demand of high-speed sewing.

Silicone wax-based lubricants have the following advantages.

(1) Provide good lubrication, allowing sewing machine speeds upwards of 7000 stitches/minute.

(2) Good antistatic properties, providing excellent thread gathering, meaning that the thread is not easily dispersed. Because the thread is not one, but several strands are twisted together. The threads will separate if there is a large amount of static electricity.

(3) Small difference between dynamic/static friction. This way the sewing machine needle in the process of running up and down, the jitter is small. The stitches will be flat and the sewing quality will be improved.

(4) Lower oiling rate and lower production cost.