Product Background Information Archives - Page 3 of 3

La Nina Means Another Cold Winter

October 28, 2011

With the coming of La Niña, much of the country is set to endure another season of cold temperatures. Stay warm this winter, both indoors and outdoors, with cozy items from David Morgan.

Koru socks are from New Zealand and made of possum fur. The feet are padded with grips in the shape of a koru, which means, ‘fern frond’ in Maori. The smooth fibers of possum fur have hollow cores and soft pointed ends.

Possum fur blended with Merino wool and nylon gives a strong, luxurious yarn that is extremely lightweight and soft. The yarn wears well, is easy to care for and resists pilling.

Our long underwear from Stanfield’s is made of 80 percent wool and 20 percent nylon. Wool is superior to synthetics for wicking away moisture while its anti-microbial properties keep odors from building up.

These will scratch at first, but trust us, after a few washes, they’ll be soft against your skin, keeping you warm and comfortable all throughout winter.

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Possum Fur

Stanfields

Stampede String Video Available

September 30, 2011

For those of you who love our kangaroo leather chinstraps but don’t have hooks in your hat, you can now use a David Morgan stampede string.

Identical to our chinstraps, except for the ends, they are light and durable. A sliding knot joins together the two, four plait braids. It is ideal for both our Heritage Collection and Panama hats.

Watch the video below to for instructions on attaching the stampede string. You can also get written instructions here.

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Stampede Strings

Hat Accessories

Stampede Strings

August 4, 2011

Our hand-crafted chinstraps work great for hats with chinstrap hooks. But how can you take advantage of the quality of kangaroo leather when you don’t have hooks?

David Morgan’s new stampede string work simply by slipping the cotter pins underneath the sweatband and then bending the pins to keep the hooks in place.

Follow these simple instructions and you’re set!

Hold the cotter pins together and slide them between the stitches at the base of the sweatband. A pair of pliers can be helpful.

Pull them all the way through until the leather braid touches the sweatband.

Bend the pins outward, as close to horizontal as possible, so they will not slip back through the sweatband.

This is how it should look beneath the sweatband.

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Chinstraps

Braided Leather Goods

Lost Wax Casting and Stamping

March 5, 2010

David Morgan’s silver jewelry is made using one of two methods: stamping or lost wax casting. Both methods have their advantages, and each piece is designed with those advantages in mind.

Most of our Northwest Native-American jewelry is made by stamping the metal. First, a steel die with the piece’s reverse image is made. The die stamps down onto a pre-cut piece of silver and impresses the die’s image into the metal. This method also has the advantage of work hardening the metal. A work hardened metal is stronger and more resistant to wear. Once the piece is stamped, the recessed areas are antiqued. An oxidizing solution is applied to the metal which turns it dark. Since tarnish is an oxidized surface, antiquing metal is really just high-speed tarnishing. Finally the piece is polished.

While stamping provides crisp detail and relief, it does not allow for deeper three dimensional work and intricate detail. For that, lost wax casting is necessary.

Lost wax casting begins by covering a model of the desired piece with a mold. A tube is inserted with the model so that a passage into the mold is created. This is called a sprue. When the mold is hard, it is cut in half. This mold can be reused multiple times.

Next, wax is poured into the mold through the sprue. After it cools, the mold is opened and the jeweler now has a wax replica of the original piece. The replica is coated with a slurry of silica and dried. Once dry, it is heated until the slurry coating is hardened and the melted wax runs out or is burned away. The result is a mold capable of withstanding the heat of molten metal. For greater efficiency, the wax replicas are often joined together into a ‘tree’.

The slurry mold is placed in a bed of heated sand into which the metal is poured. Once cooled, the mold is broken off or dissolved in water and a metal replica, complete with spruing is the result. If the replicas were joined together into a tree, the individual pieces are cut away and the sprues are removed to be used in another process.

A tree of Everlasting Love pendants after casting.

The final steps are to remove oxidation and any signs of casting via sand blasting and hand polishing.

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Pacific Northwest Indian Jewelry

Celtic Jewelry

Jewelry FAQs

Choosing the Right Sweater

January 8, 2010

Style and color matter, but weave and yarn are just as important when choosing a sweater. If you are using your sweater for work, you may want a tighter weave and a stronger yarn. If you are wearing it next to your skin, then a merino wool provides comfort. For the warmest sweater, bulk will prevent heat from escaping.

All of our sweaters are made with wool. Some are pure wool, some are mixed with other fibers such as our delightful Possum/Merino wool sweaters, and some have a touch of synthetic fibers added for strength and durability. Compared to less expensive synthetic competitors, wool reigns supreme for its warmth and comfort. Wool is also the optimal fiber for moisture transference and will not retain an odor.

Below we feature five of our sweaters. From top to bottom are: Devold’s Aquaduct Polo, Thermo Jacket, and Marine Sweater, Lothlorian’s Possum Sweater and Devold’s Islender Sweater.

Next up is a close-up of each sweater:

Devold’s Aquaduct is made of 95% merino wool and 5% nylon. Warm air is trapped between two layers, providing a warm, but lightweight top. The merino wool makes it comfortable next to your skin.

Devold’s Thermo Jacket is composed of 100% merino wool. Light and soft, it is an excellent layering piece that also works well as an outer jacket.

Devold’s Marine Sweater (both zip-turtleneck and crewneck) is the traditional Norwegian sweater used for work. After a decade or so of hard use, the Norwegians would take their sweater to tailors who traveled on the waterways in barges to have the cuffs replaced. The Islender was the sweater of choice of the Artic and Antartic explorers in the early 1900s. The wool is worsted, providing a stronger and tighter weave. This design also prevents snags.

Lothlorian Sweaters (men’s v-neck and women’s cardigan) combine the soft pointed ends of possum fur with merino wool for an extremely soft and luxurious fiber. Because possum fur has a hollow core, the sweater is very light and very warm.

Devold’s Islender Sweater is our thickest sweater. The bulk prevents heat from escaping while the weave provides an elasticity that prevents constraint. However, we recommend wearing a shell over the sweater. A strong wind can penetrate the weave and rob you of heat.

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Devold Sweaters

Lothlorian Sweaters

Discover the Warmth of Wool

What is Worsted Wool?

October 2, 2009

Cooler weather has arrived throughout most of the country. For those of you fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to need your wool sweater, you may find it is actually made of worsted wool. Just what happens to wool that makes it worsted? But before we go into that, it’s important to note why worsted wool is such a great fabric.

A worsted wool fabric is tighter and stronger than other wool fabrics. It can hold its shape, has a fine drape and keep a crease. It is much smoother. For those reasons, many garments are now made with worsted wool.

The difference between worsted wool and other spun wool starts in the earliest stage of preparing the yarn. Both worsted and spun wools are carded. Imagine two blocks of wood with tiny pins on one side. The wool is placed between the two blocks and the blocks are pulled in opposite directions. This process untangles the wool and places the fibers alongside each other. It also removes any debris that may have gotten embedded into the wool.

Next, and this happens only to worsted wool, the fibers are combed. Imagine two sets of long, metal teeth. One holds the wool while the other is swiped through the bundle. This pulls the fibers into alignment even further than the carding and removes short and brittle fibers. The wool staple must be over four inches long in order to be spun into worsted wool yarn. It also removes additional debris.

Now the long staples are ready to be spun. Because of the combing and carding process, the fibers can be spun much more tightly than other woolens. David Morgan sells several worsted wool sweaters. You can find them at the links below:

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Devold Sweaters

Discover the Warmth of Wool

Share124K

La Nina Means Another Cold Winter

Stampede String Video Available

Stampede Strings

Lost Wax Casting and Stamping

Choosing the Right Sweater

What is Worsted Wool?

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