A tool for measuring scye depth as well as front and back balance.
Hi Everyone,
Let me start off by wishing everyone a happy new year!
I wanted to show a tool I use sometimes for getting the depth of a customer's arm scye but can also be used to also get some measures that can be useful in determining the front and back balance while drafting patterns. In the Photo version the tool is about 3.5 inches at it's tallest height and 5 inches at it's widest, I've made it out of a thick card but plan on moving it over to thick leather for a nicer finish as it currently looks a bit chaotic and most clients would likely shriek if they saw this.
Features of Device:
- A long elastic ribbon attached to the solid tool that wraps around the model's chest and back round to the tool again horizontally
- A string/ smaller elastic ribbon designed to wrap over the should and onto the back of the device in order to hold the tool close to the scye, may be attached to their shirt with a safety pin to keep from falling off
Notes:
When placing the tool under their armpit make sure that it's relatively snug and the tall edge is running mostly in a straight line to the ground and the wider portion is cupping nicely. When wrapping the elastic round make sure it's both snug and running straight on the back and front.
When measuring the scye depth from the back neck point, I tend to measure to the top of the elastic edge not the bottom as it may result in too deep of an armhole. In addition to measuring points, when taking the front and back balance I like to take it from where the shoulder line would be right where it meets the neck.
It's a fairly eccentric tool that can also be replicated by just using an elastic ribbon wide enough to go round the model and making sure it fits properly under each armpit. Another method is by using a tape measure and going "over and under" the shoulder and armpits and pinning where the tape meets itself on the back (I've included a video at the very bottom of this technique I also use for determining scye depth)
Very crude Paint drawing of how the device works forgive my lack of CAD skills haha.
Scye Depth
side shot
Front Balance
Back Balance
My Alternative method for finding the scye depth with a tape measure
I hope this has been useful/interesting please let me know what you think and if you have any feedback at all on how I could improve the device.
Cheers,
Kai😁
Hello Kai,
1. Measuring the bottom edge of the tape to get a "deeper" armhole is not very accurate. Tapes vary in width and one never has control over who is working with what tape width.
2. Armhole depths and shoulder angles are incredibly difficult to asses accurately by eye. These will have to be measured directly.
To measure shoulder angle:
Use a level tool app on your smartphone to measure the shoulder angle. Make sure to first put the shoulder pad on the shoulders as it affects this angle.
From your front neck point, draw a vertical line downwards and use this line as your 0 point (or 90º line) to mark the shoulder angle with a protractor.
See illustration below:
To measure armhole depth:
Place a straight ruler under the armpits and hold it parallel to the floor. Make sure the ruler is as high as it can be. The top edge of the ruler will represent the armpit at its highest point.
Next, place the shoulder pad that will be used for the jacket on the shoulders and measure from the highest point of the pad, straight down over the front scye, 5/8 (1.5cm) below the top edge of the ruler.
On your pattern, apply this measure from your front shoulder point straight downwards and that will be the base of your armhole.
Reza
International School of Tailoring