It would seem that information on how to properly sew up the ball should be of little interest - sports equipment in stores is offered in the widest assortment, so it’s easy to replace a torn ball. In fact, the issue is still relevant. Good equipment is so expensive that it sometimes needs to be collected for months. And to buy a quality ball is not so simple.
To bother or not worth it?
Learning how to sew the ball correctly makes sense only if you have a really nice, leather thing in your hands. First, keep in mind that the work ahead is painstaking and hours-long. For the sake of cheapness, do not bother with it. And secondly, the dermatin, of which the majority of cheap footballs consist , will still not last long after the recovery procedures - the seams will begin to creep quickly. It is possible that this will happen even during the resuscitation process.
Even if you decide to sew up the ball, do not forget: you will not be able to restore its original ideal form. Most likely, the object will most likely not resemble a melon, but it will not become a full-fledged ball either. So it will be suitable only for training and friendly matches.
We prepare the toolkit
For your work to be successful, you need to stock up on:
- strong threads, thick, nylon, twisted, but the fishing line will not work - it will stretch itself and tear the fastened material;
- an awl, selected according to the size of the holes on the elements of the ball;
- special loop tool.
Let us dwell on the latter in more detail. To create it, a piece of an elastic steel string is taken with a cross section of no more than half a millimeter and a length of 20 cm. In the middle, it heats up on a candle, burner or lighter and bends in half. The ends are clamped with an M5 screw into the rod - it will become a handle, greatly facilitating the work. The end of the loop expands to fit the thread and bends slightly to push it through. You can get to work.
The beginning of time
Now directly on how to properly sew up the ball. A torn seam expands to the nearest joint. The camera goes down, and through the hole received the ball is turned inside out. Nearby seams are checked for strength. If they diverge, they will have to be torn apart. Often there is a need to evaporate a whole pentagon element, or even several. On intact seams, the thread is checked for fastening: it should be tightened to the stop, and the knot should not begin to open. If this is observed, the knot should be tightened as tightly as possible and tied 3-4 times.
How to sew up a soccer ball
We proceed to the seam that has opened.
- An eyelet is inserted into an existing hole so that it passes through both connected elements.
- The tip of the thread sticks into the loop and stretches to the other side.
- A double knot is tied with a maximum tightening of the thread and so that it is inside.
- The loop is inserted into the next hole on the right; one end of the double thread stretches to the right.
- The loop returns to the previous hole, and the second end is pulled towards the already stretched thread.
This procedure is repeated again and again. Visually, the seam looks like a pair of oncoming snakes. When it reaches the corner of the pentagon, the threads stretch strongly in opposite directions for the most dense connection of the elements, after which several knots are tied and fused with a lighter. In this condition, the mount is guaranteed to be protected from divergence.
When the last element remains, the ball is turned on the “face”, the camera is inserted, and the pentagon is sewn in the same way as the others, but without tightening. Putting it in place, the Swede pulls the ends through the remaining small hole, knots and melts the bundle, which is then pushed into the match.
Nipple and camera recovery
Knowing how to properly sew up the ball will also be useful to you if the nipple started to poison or the inner chamber is damaged directly . Note that in times of global scarcity, this knowledge would be enough for you: with the “scoop” you could easily buy new “parts”. So all concern was pulling out old ones and putting in new ones. Now repairing balls is not so simple. Buying a soccer camera is almost impossible. So you have to gently rip open the shell and reanimate the old "stuffing".
- If the nipple holds, and the ball goes down, then the camera poisons. It is necessary to let out air from it, carefully cut out a minimum of seams and pull it out. The camera lowers into a bucket of water; the place of breakdown is determined by the pop-up bubbles and is surrounded by an indelible marker. Next comes the repair kit for air mattresses. Carry out a “treatment” of the camera, insert it back. And how to sew a soccer ball, you already know.
- You can detect nipple incontinence in the same way as on a bicycle chamber, or simply lower it into water and see if air escapes. For repair, the ball is opened in a segment where the nipple comes out, an idle element with a piece of the camera is cut out until hardening is completed. Inside, a convex nipple (approximately 12 mm in diameter) is tightly tightened with a strong thread so that a wet needle hardly enters. When the pressure is held, the patch is glued over the nipple 2 cm more in size, after which the nipple bridges onto the camera with the same repair kit.