You must never allow the needle to leave your working hand - the temptation to pass the needle between hands must be resisted, as you will need all the hands you have.
Right handers must always pass the needle in from the right, left handers always in from the left. I've described the action a right hander should take, and if different, the actions for left handers are in brackets.
An important rule in any neat, fast job is to take the time to set up your job properly in a clear area, at waist height.
Always cut away from you, it is better to injure someone else.
A sharp knife will cause fewer injuries, as it requires less force to use.
Watch when cutting close to work mates and don't put your hands near someone using a knife.
Beware of pulling a needle toward you in case the twine breaks and you stab yourself.
The two most common materials used to make netting are polyamide (PA or nylon) and polyethylene (PE). Polyamide netting is strong, and usually soft and limp to touch. It burns with a celery like smell and is negatively buoyant (sinks).
You will notice that nylon nets will have long rips in the bag because they sink to the bottom when hooked up on a rock. Polyethylene is weaker, but with better abrasion characteristics, is much stiffer than polyamide, and will tend to float up off hook-ups.
1.3 Twine
The actual twine used is most commonly described by the ply of the finished twine, which may be found by counting the fibers in one yarn and multiplying this by three. Nylon uses a much finer fiber than polyethylene, and is usually described by its diameter in millimeters. This method is also used to describe the size of braided twine.
The example shown is right hand laid, 3 strand, 15 ply twisted twine. Most netting twine in use for fish and prawn trawls is between 18 and 48 ply. Most large fish trawls use braided twine between 5 and 10mm diameter.
Netting may be length ways stretched (in the direction of the arrow marked AM), which is most usually used for prawn trawls as it reduces fouling, or depth ways stretched (in the direction of the arrow marked AP), which is usually used for fish trawls. It will make your job of mending much easier if you take time to recognise how a netting panel is orientated, that is, recognising the depth or width of a panel.
To do this, take a close look at a knot, and follow how the twine is tied. This will tell you if you are looking at a row of meshes, or a column of points.
When constructing new trawl nets, scissors are the best way to cut netting into shape. When repairing damaged netting where the knots must be cleaned, a knife is the best tool. If the knot is carefully cleaned off a mesh, a continuous piece of twine will be found. If the knot is cut from a point, it will fall apart. For this reason, the tails of the knots at the points must be left long, as shown in this figure.
1.6 Shaping netting
When netting is made on a machine, meshes are formed from side to side across the length of the netting, just as a typewriter works. When cutting points, the shape will run down the depth of a piece of netting. Cutting bars will run diagonally across the netting. Combinations of these are used to form the flat panels of netting into a three dimensional trawl.
This is found by measuring ten meshes in the direction of stretch and dividing by ten to get an average mesh size. This size will include the knot. Beware, as fisheries regulations are based on a mesh size between knots, and the ordering of cod ends needs to take this into account.
1.8 Cleaning off (2:50)
When cleaning off old hangings, keep the knife flat onto the rope to avoid bluntening the knife and cutting into the rope.
Always cut away from yourself, working on the hanging knots.
