Spider Silk - At Natural History museum in New York

[storeynicholas]

Yes, collecting webs I have done before: we once lived in an old farmhouse in Cornwall, full of friendly and industrious spiders and I collected there, in the course of a year, a tight ball of webs about the size of a cricket ball (and lost it) but, of course, this was just English house spider and not really up to snuff on quality for weaving - but I shall look into the possibility of collecting webs - which brings me back to an early question of how many you would need - or, put another way, what weight of silk, just to make one tie? I think, having read around the subject, that this is the only way in which I could do this - and it is not totally unrealistic as there are vast areas of space here where one can roam at will and collect webs! I just hope that marcelo is not going to say that there is some law that I might be contravening, have my visa revoked - and be sent packing!
NJS

[David Hober]

Yes, collecting webs I have done before: we once lived in an old farmhouse in Cornwall, full of friendly and industrious spiders and I collected there, in the course of a year, a tight ball of webs about the size of a cricket ball (and lost it) but, of course, this was just English house spider and not really up to snuff on quality for weaving - but I shall look into the possibility of collecting webs - which brings me back to an early question of how many you would need - or, put another way, what weight of silk, just to make one tie? I think, having read around the subject, that this is the only way in which I could do this - and it is not totally unrealistic as there are vast areas of space here where one can roam at will and collect webs! I just hope that marcelo is not going to say that there is some law that I might be contravening, have my visa revoked - and be sent packing!
NJS

NJS,

You sound ready to go collecting - good luck - and post photos.

The silk in this photo is one of our handwoven silks and weighs 68 grams per 40 inch wide yard. We would make roughly two standard 3-fold ties from a yard with some silk left over.

So lets say that a light weight summer tie would need in the area of 30 grams of silk - there are many variables but you can use that to make rough estimates.





Our Macclesfield 50 oz madder silks would be heavier see below photo for an example.

Please note that the English "50 oz" description is not very clear. It is actually based on an old measurement of roughly 10 meters or yards(?) I forget which but probably yards as it is an older measurement.

The weight for a standard 57 inch long tie for us will be roughly 70 grams of silk. In England most makers will get 4 ties per 28 inch wide 1.6 meter long piece of silk. We use quite a bit more silk in our ties so our calculations will not match industry standards. We use self tippings and more silk when we do our folds as an example.

With that said lets do some calculations:

50 oz divided by 10 = 5 oz per yard (40 inches wide) 5 times 28 = 140 grams per yard. 2 ties per yard equal 70 grams of spider webs.

Again there are many variables, all our ties are true bespoke (some companies advertise bespoke when they only work with length and width which we being old-fashioned tie makers consider made to measure) so the amount of silk used will vary quite a bit.

If you email me at customerservice@samhober.com I will be happy to send you some swatches of lighter Thai silk and heavier English silk.

Later we can talk about how to finish and dye the silk.

[storeynicholas]

So! Then! The devil hath found work for my idle hands to do! But I am more than happy to have a crack at this. To you and for those listening in - I do not guarantee to enable ultimate success but I am prepared to give it my best shot. The taste of failure in something is nothing new to many men of fifty but, in the words of a favourite quote that my father has hanging by his desk "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm"

There are a few questions, though, that I need to put: first, does it matter, from the spinning/weaving point of view, whether the webs come from different species/sub-species and, secondly, does the method of web collection - for example - scrubbing the webs up into a ball - have any bearing on the likelihood of success? I have to say that, if this can be done, I should like to think that we could make more than just one tie and my own aim would be: one to be auctioned for spider research; one for Michael Alden (who is enabling this precarious but strangely exciting experiment to be undertaken) and one for each of us. If we could manage that, then we could do more. But, just to get to my suggested aim, is going to take some considerable time. Moreover, spiders are such tiny bits of things (even the bigger ones) that their achievements are truly miraculous - even if they do eat each other sometimes!
NJS.

[David Hober]

So! Then! The devil hath found work for my idle hands to do! But I am more than happy to have a crack at this. To you and for those listening in - I do not guarantee to enable ultimate success but I am prepared to give it my best shot. The taste of failure in something is nothing new to many men of fifty but, in the words of a favourite quote that my father has hanging by his desk "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm"

There are a few questions, though, that I need to put: first, does it matter, from the spinning/weaving point of view, whether the webs come from different species/sub-species and, secondly, does the method of web collection - for example - scrubbing the webs up into a ball - have any bearing on the likelihood of success? I have to say that, if this can be done, I should like to think that we could make more than just one tie and my own aim would be: one to be auctioned for spider research; one for Michael Alden (who is enabling this precarious but strangely exciting experiment to be undertaken) and one for each of us. If we could manage that, then we could do more. But, just to get to my suggested aim, is going to take some considerable time. Moreover, spiders are such tiny bits of things (even the bigger ones) that their achievements are truly miraculous - even if they do eat each other sometimes!
NJS.

NJS,

I love your father's quote. Here is another one from Goethe:
When you have a dream or idea begin it, for in the beginning is boldness magic and genius.

We have not woven spider silk before but as long as the different sub species have silk suitable for weaving you should be ok.

With traditional silk we unreel and then boil the silk which is quite strong with spinning which is usually done with broken pieces of silk the process is even easier. So balls of silk should be fine - but I can't say for sure as we do not do any spinning only reeling.

Brazil actually has a silk industry so some local research should prove fruitful in terms of the requirements for spinning spider silk. I would also consult a natural history museum or university department in Brazil about silk quality.

As for the resulting silk I think that the first tie should certainly go to you as you will be braving spider bites.
I had no idea that Michael was involved but this is good to hear, will he be collecting spider silk with you? - smiling.

I received your email and will cut and mail your swatches tomorrow - they should show up in a few weeks.

[David Hober]

I just had another thought: will we have to degum the spider silk?

If so you will lose around 20 to 25% of the weight.

Here is a photo of Thai silk that we have reeled and is ready to be dyed:

[storeynicholas]

I shall get weaving with more research.
NJS

[storeynicholas]

The golden orb weaving spider (Nephila clavipes) is definitely here and, once I have got a reasonable grounding in the subject and, as David Hober has advised me, spoken with spider specialists in Brazil, I shall be out gossamer hunting; probably as the sun bloodies up the mountains of Rio state on the horizon and the dew shows up the webs, on the edge of the denser jungle areas around the lagoons. I shall post here again when I have got some results and I hope too, photographs.
NJS

[storeynicholas]

I found a Golden Orb Weaving Spider this afternoon in its web, stretched across a substantial span, on the verandah of some friends who live on the lagoon but I did not have a camera with me - however, they are obviously here. This spider (from its large size, probably a female) had just finished its lunch, in the form of a butterfly, before we started ours.
NJS

[David Hober]

Nicholas,

You are engaged in a magical qwest and I suggest that the journey is almost as important as the end.

You need to take your notebook and camera with you everywhere...

If indeed you are not allowed to collect wild spider webs you will need to domesticate them if you want enough silk.

Or

Write another book.....

[storeynicholas]

David,
Yes, it was quite a kick to find such a fine example of one of these spiders - and to astonish our friends with its qualities! They had not even seen the web! We touched it and it is amazing just how strong and resilient even a single strand of its silk is. But we have a garden and I am sure that they can be encouraged to come there in return for a plentiful supply of insects. I have seen a quite a big web out there before (maybe a metre across) but I did not examine its occupant too closely; however, I expect that it was the same. The largest web that I have seen here was in another friend's orange grove and that web was nearer to two metres across. Apparently, also they do have a significant (but not perilous) bite!,
best,
Nicholas.