Patching Material Question

[elkhorne]

Yesterday we were in Hobby Lobby and purchased a half yard of 100% cotton pillow ticking material. Looks like it will make a lot of patches when stripped up. My question for the forum is this, when you guys buy new material for patching, do you wash the patching material before you use it or not? I also was thinking of just washing it in water with no soap to introduce any other chemicals from the soap into the equation. I just mixed the material and, unwashed it is 0.017 to 0.018 inches thick. I would bet after a washing, it would measure out around 0.020 inches thick but just speculating. I’ve had problem with my .50 Sharon barreled Hawken cutting patches with a 0.490 roundball so just trying to experiment which patching material would be better. Thanks for any ideas you all might come up with.
elkhorne

[recurve]

I wash x2 with soap (tide at our home) and depending on if I want it to thicken up dry on high heat Or line dry to stay near the same thickness.  I take my thickness gage to  Joanne fabrics and measure the 100 cotton fabric ( I like 10oz denim  .20 )

[Daryl]

What you measure with, will give different thicknesses, even different sets of calipers give differing thicknesses when compressed the same each time.
The 10 oz. denim I bought some years back, was .0225" in thickness.
I thought the newer 10oz. I bought was thinner at .021", until, I measured it with my old calipers - .0225" again.

I wash all new material twice - 1st time with soap & medium heat, second the complete cycle without soap and dry it on medium heat.
It usually gains just a thou. or sometimes only 1/2 thou. so over what it measures in the store.

New material has "sizing" in it, making it stiffer and I feel that should be removed, so I do by washing it.

[hanshi]

All patching material I buy gets washed just once (impatient) and machine dried.  Yes, it does thicken up slightly, and I attribute this to the sizing being washed out.

[Darkhorse]

I wash all of my patching material at least once, rarely but sometimes, twice.
Cut a large strip off your material and wash it. Won't hurt anything and if you don't like it just don't wash the rest.

[Hungry Horse]

 I wash any new patching material I get to remove the sizing, and then tumble dry with a few tennis balls just to soften it up. Remember that pillow ticking today is not as tightly woven as it was in the past, because feather pillows are nearly nonexistent, hence modern ticking doesn’t need to be tight enough to contain feathers.
 I measure material thickness with an old Ames snap mic, always measures with the same pressure, and eliminates pressure guessing.
 I don’t buy ticking in large quantities, because cotton deteriorates over time, and exposure to sun light. I am a bloodhound when it comes to sources for linen material in usable thicknesses. You only have to find one good thin linen tablecloth with a cigarette burn, or a red wine stain, to be set for life.

  Hungry Horse

[Daryl]

A table cloth - enough for one or two years, anyway. Of course, that depends on how many guns you can use THAT material in.