How It's Made

All Rolling Otter Rashuards are made in our small factory in Northeast Philadelphia, along with all of the products that our small family of brands makes. We spent many years becoming expert manufacturers and acquiring all of the machinery to do this work and we take pride in making a product that is high quality, sustainably made, and supports hard workers here at home. Like Jiu Jitsu, actually making quality products is an art form that takes practice and teamwork. It goes without saying this isn't an art form still practiced in America, so every aspect of this work we taught ourselves how to do over many years.

For anyone interested to know, this is how we make our Rashguards:

Step 1: using our modified plotter to arrange our graphics onto transfer paper

Step 2: using a calendar press that uses heat and pressure to catalyze a chemical reaction that transfers dye to our premium fabrics

Step 3: Our laser cutter (we used to do this step by hand) cuts out the printed fabric pieces. 

Step 4: The "queen" of the operation is our flatlock sewing machine. This is used to make all of the structural stitches in the garment. It's a strong and durable stitch that doesn't leave any flap of fabric to be pressed into the skin.

Step 5: Using a surging machine to skillfully put the collar into the partially-built rashguard (one of the most nuanced steps in the process)

Step 6: Using our quadruple-needle coverstitch machine to put redundant and stretchy hems on the sleeve ends and bottom of the rashguard. This seam is the most likely to fail in any active wear garment, so we use a stitch with a lot of redundancy to give the product the longest life possible.

Step 7: Not many makers do this, but use a specialty sewing machine called a bartack machine to put a dense and secure thread lock into the cover stitch to lock it securely into place. 

Step 8: We trim all of the thread ends from sewing and quality check the finished unit before packaging it in upcycled packaging and shipping it out!