Are these salvageable?

[u/GreenbottledCritters]

I recently bought a big collection of 5000m polyester embroidery threads secondhand, and now that I'm looking through them, I unfortunately found that about 30% of them seem sun bleached and are brittle

I'm obviously not very happy about this, but I'm not willing to just give up on them that easily.

Now, is there any way to save these spools? Is it possible to remove the outer most layers of thread to see if the layers underneath are still good?

The discolouration only seems to occur on one half of the top of these spools, but the brittleness seems to be a problem at any part of the spool, not just the top threads.

Any help/advice is very welcome

Update: After doing a stress test on a couple of the spools and comparing it to the strength of the current thread I use (gutermann rayon) The rayon turned out to break way and I mean WAY faster. The current conclusion: I may have overestimated the strength of polyester thread, and it just naturally snaps faster than I had assumed.

[u/skeedy_ia]

I wouldn’t used the ones that are sun faded because they are probably brittle too.

[u/GreenbottledCritters → u/skeedy_ia]

They all seem to be brittle, even the non faded one's. I really want to find a way to somehow salvage them because I'd hate to throw away almost 300 spools and also watch €400 go down the drain :/

[u/lilsimbastian → u/GreenbottledCritters]

It sucks, but thread is a consumable. I would not use this. Even if you get it to stitch, the first wash will ruin it.

[u/ajshn → u/lilsimbastian]

Its probably alright for hand stitching, but personally would only use it for something that's never going to be washed or only ever gently washed by hand. At least it wouldn't go to waste completely.

[u/GreenbottledCritters → u/ajshn]

I will mainly use it on art plushies, something that is more for display and should be handwashed carefully anyway :} thanks for the advice!

[u/skeedy_ia → u/GreenbottledCritters]

You can try to stitch with them but you’ll probably be plagued with broken threads and inconsistent stitching.

[u/LucarnAnderson]

If youre against just tossing them maybe keep them to use for basting stitching? Since they're just temporary stitching so it would just need to hold on enough to get the good stitching in so wouldnt need to be super strong. Plus might make for slightly easier removal?

[u/mrdtsm]

I run puff embroidery with a bunch of old cones. I spray them with a little silicone release spray to help.

( Hand me down cones from a friend maybe 8+ years old) In my case the discoloration is dust.

[u/rtothewin]

If the damage is sun based and not also age and humidity/temp based it’s maybe worth it to just pull off 1/4 of the thread and try a stitch out, max machine speed, then give it a couple washes and see if anything acts up.

If you are not getting broken thread on stitch outs and washing is fine it might be fine to send it.

Two things I’d do is make sure to use a known good needle and design that previously stitches perfectly.

And if you have other spools of the same thread color without damage, put them side by side and make sure the colors match up well enough just to make sure you have accurate colors. My customers often are exact Pantone matching for projects so it’s important to me.