Industrial and Contract Sewing

No. Halco supplies hook and loop materials to contract sewers and sewn product manufacturers. We do not sew finished goods. For sewing capacity, the Advanced Textiles Association maintains a contract sewer directory.

Precision-slit roll stock in any width within a product’s range; standard 27.5 yd and 50 yd rolls; long-length rolls converted and stocked under an arrangement with a sales rep; cut-to-length pieces supplied loose or in mated sets; kits grouped per assembly; die-cut shapes; tack-down lamination; and dye-to-match color. Most sewing customers run a repeating specification, so these are set up as a stocking program rather than quoted job by job.

Buy longer rolls with fewer splices. Standard put-ups are 27.5 and 50 yards; Halco converts many sew-on products to substantially longer rolls, up to 1,100 yards on several products. A line consuming 1,100 yards of tape handles one roll instead of forty, and every change-out costs the operator’s time plus the tail left on the core. Long-length rolls are set up with a sales rep as a stocking arrangement with a dedicated stock number.

Specify tack-down lamination — a narrow adhesive strip laminated down the center of the tape’s back, leaving a clear sewing channel along each edge. The tape holds position at speed and the needle never contacts adhesive. This is a converting option applied to any sew-in product in the line, not a separate product.

Keep the adhesive out of the needle path. Full-width adhesive-backed hook and loop places adhesive exactly where the needle penetrates, which transfers adhesive to the needle, changes stitch formation, and eventually reaches the bobbin case and hook. Tack-down lamination places the adhesive in a narrow center strip and leaves both stitch lines clear.

Woven nylon in long-length rolls, specified with tack-down lamination where the tape needs to hold position at speed. Woven construction gives the stitch line a dimensionally consistent tape with a selvedge margin and 4.4 lbs stitch tear strength.

Woven hook and loop carries a selvedge — a finished edge that does not ravel. Used at a standard woven width, fraying is not a failure mode. It becomes a consideration on slit widths, where the knife cuts through the weave. Halco slits to any width within a product’s range and can supply the material with a selvedge edge or without, and applies edge processing where the application exposes the edge. Specify the edge condition along with the width rather than cutting tape down at the bench, which leaves a raw edge that will open up.

A closure edge that will be handled, abraded, or laundered should be either a selvedge or a processed slit edge — repeated wash and dry cycles will open an unprocessed edge. An edge captured inside a seam or binding needs nothing. On die-cut and adhesive-backed parts, the adhesive and liner stabilize the perimeter and an unprocessed edge is standard.

A selvedge is the finished, self-contained edge of woven tape — it does not ravel and gives the needle a clean margin. A slit edge is produced by knife slitting to width, which cuts through the weave. Slitting is what makes non-standard widths possible, and Halco can supply slit material with a selvedge edge or without, with edge processing where the application exposes the edge.

Woven is formed on a loom with a finished selvedge; knit is knitted and thinner. Halco’s woven nylon runs 0.077″ hook and 0.082″ loop, engaging at 0.131″. Knit nylon loop is 0.04″. Woven holds engagement strength longer under cycling and has nearly double the stitch tear strength — 4.4 lbs against 2.4 lbs. Knit is the better choice where finished thickness, drape, or wide-format coverage governs.

HALCO® Premium Sew On Hook. It loses 15% of closure strength at 2,000 peels and 25% at 5,000, where standard nylon loses 30% and 35%, and it delivers 2.59 lb/in peel against 1.12 lb/in. The pairing matters as much as the hook — premium hook is characterized against Halco woven nylon loop. Polyester is the exception to watch: right for UV and salt, but the shortest cycle life in the woven family.

Both trace to a pairing mismatch rather than the sewing operation. Loop blow-out — loop fibers pulling free under repeated peel — happens sooner on knit and unnapped loops, which carry less fiber anchorage than woven. Hook abrasion comes from over-specifying hook against a soft loop. Match hook aggressiveness to loop construction rather than maximizing both; where high cycle counts are required, move to woven loop before moving to a more aggressive hook; and size the engagement area for the load.

Woven nylon and polyester are dimensionally stable through normal laundering but not shrink-free. A-A-55126 caps length-direction shrinkage at 3.0% for hook tape and 4.0% for loop tape tested to AATCC 135. Two implications: hook and loop do not shrink identically, and the tape and the fabric shrink at different rates, which can pucker a closure after the first wash. Run a wash test on the actual fabric and tape combination before committing a production build.

Engagement values published by any manufacturer are measured on matched pairs. Mixing hook from one source with loop from another produces unpredictable peel and shear, and the published performance data no longer applies. See Hook and Loop Compatibility and Matched Pairs.

Yes. Halco offers dye-to-match Pantone color matching with lower minimums than most suppliers, across the woven range. Send a fabric swatch or a Pantone reference.

HALCO® Knit Nylon Loop is available to 54″. Woven products run to 7″.

Welding removes thread, needles, and operator time from the attachment step entirely, and is worth evaluating at higher volumes or where sewing labor is the constraint. Note that not every sew-on material is weldable — ultrasonic welding is not recommended for HALCO® Woven Nylon/Poly. See Hook and Loop Welding.

Most Halco sew-on products are Prop 65, REACH, and RoHS compliant. Speak to a representative for certifications on a specific product.