Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
Jock, I love the large sett size!

So many tartans I see woven nowadays in setts that look too small to me.

Seems that at least some of the mills have the sett size increase as the weight increases. The 16oz cloth is usually big enough.

When I look through the sample-books of a few different major mills there's a certain amount of agreement as to sett sizes. It's interesting to look at The Highlanders Of Scotland in which men are wearing kilts in smaller and larger sett-sizes than we normally see today, in fabric intended for men's kilts.
This seems to be driven by kiltmakers and the mills, who have a formula for the ideal sett size for pleating. They want to be around 6" for the sett. I think it's too small, personally. When I did my custom weave, I went with a 7.5" sett by scaling up the thread count. I had to add a few extra threads here and there to get the sett size as large as possible while still being usable for pleating without causing headaches. The proportions are slightly different than the oficial versions, but that's what makes it custom, I reckon.