Tools of the Trade
Day Sixteen: Surgical Tools
A few years ago, I spent each day in January writing about a different tool I use in my maskmaking. As I am currently redesigning my entire website in the new year, I thought it might be nice to revisit this project. Each day in January 2021, I’ll share a different item that I use in my studio. I hope some of these can help other people who are interested in making wrestling masks.
Surgical tools can be very useful when sewing. Hemostats, forceps, or clamps (the three items on the left) can help you clean out hard-to-reach areas on the inside of your sewing machine. More than once I found a piece of fluff gumming up the works in my bobbin area, that I couldn’t reach with my fingers. Forceps easily reached in there and removed the offending material. My dad had a lot of these laying around the house when I was growing up; seems he had a bit of a roach problem. Surgical scissors (the rightmost three items) are extremely sharp and can be helpful in sewing. The first pair pictured are designed for removing stitches, and have a little hook blade at the end; they’re excellent for seam ripping. The other two pairs have curved blades, making it easier to trim surface fabric without cutting the fabric underneath.
I have no idea what the official name of this type of clamp is. I’ve seen them used when giving somebody a tongue piercing; they have a flat loop at the end. I usually use these when I need to grab something a bit bigger, things the small clamps can’t handle. The other day, they came in handy in a way I hadn’t used them before. I was making a tab to cover the end of a zipper in a mask. Usually such a tab would be made of vinyl or leather, but in this case, the tab needed to sort of blend in with the mask, so I made tube of the same spandex the mask was made of, turned it right side out, and fingerpressed it flat. The problem was, since it was just spandex, I thought it was a bit floppy. I wanted to stiffen it up a bit with some interfacing, but stuffing the rectangle of interfacing in there was proving difficult. Then I had a brainstorm: I locked the rectangle in the clamp, with the tip of the clamp right down at one end of the interfacing. This now easily slid down into the tube, whereupon I pinched the end of the rectangle, released the clamp, and pulled it out, leaving the interfacing in place. It worked a treat!