Q. I have a pair of nice Fiskars office scissors. Are those good for contouring ST-30?
A. Are you yanking my chain, bro??? Go get yourself a good pair of barber shears. You'll save yourself a shipload of heartache!
Be sure to clean the tape gunk off the shears after every few cuts. Rubbing on the blades with your fingers is good for this, and then when you are done with your ST-30 work for the day, give the shears a thorough cleaning with some paper towel dampened with Desolvit.
Q. I'm going insane trying to get the tape to stick to the lace when I try to peel the backing off. Help!
A. Remember those Fiskar scissors you were so proud of? It's a good thing you didn't throw them out after the previous question. You didn't did you??? Because you now want to mush the tape down really hard with the plastic handle of the Fiskars (not the barber shears!) before trying to peel off the backing.
When you bought those barber shears, I hope you also bought a pair of high quality tweezers. Grab the corner of a piece of backing with the tweezers and pull the backing off. Then bend the ends of the freshly-removed backing up at a 90 degree angle and put the backing back down on the tape. This protects the tape while you continue to work, and now you have little handles to remove the backing when you go to do that again in a little while.
If you still have trouble getting the backing off, it's good to have a pair of tick tweezers to hold the tape down while pulling up on the backing with the other tweezers. Be careful with the tick tweezers, though. They're really sharp and you might hurt either yourself or the unit if you're not careful. Actually, now that I think about it, a fingernail probably works as well as the tick tweezers.
- Darius
This message has been edited by Darius99 on Jun 23, 2008 1:04 AM This message has been edited by Darius99 on Jun 23, 2008 1:00 AM
I find it easy also. using desolvit to clean your scissors may be why your tape isn't sticking. As has been posted on this forum many times, simply spray your scissors with lace release or 99% before cutting the tape, the tape won't stick to your scissors and it won't weaken the stickiness like desolvit will.
DebbieS.
I find it easy also. using desolvit to clean your scissors may be why your tape isn't sticking.
The tape is sticking fine now, but maybe I should amend that little FAQ to say, "Be sure to thoroughly clean the Desolvit off of the scissors with a bit of dish washing liquid".
I'll try alcohol trick to see if that helps things any. I asked a while back if I should do that, but no one answered at the time. I was worried that alchohol might ruin the tape. It's not difficult to cut the tape to a shape now that I have barber shears, though, and rubbing the scissors works fine in between cuts to clean the scissors enough.
It's a bit time consuming to keep cutting little bits of tape off to get the contour just right, but I think next time I'll try the trick someone else mentioned of making a tape-cutting template.
Also for the ST-30 FAQ: As Traco and JRob pointed out in another thread, a toothpick is one of your best friends, because not only is it the best implement for applying glue touchups, but it also turns out to be one of the best ways to separate ST-30 from its backing. Lance the tape itself (just the sticky part, not the backing) with the pointy tip of the toothpick, while pulling up on the backing with tweezers or a fingernail. Be careful not to poke your eye out. Those toothpicks sometimes have a will of their own!
- Darius
This message has been edited by Darius99 on Jun 25, 2008 12:42 AM
