Tease

Characteristic

The wool is a good heat insulator, in particular owing to the fact that she imprisons nearly 80% of air in her own weight. It absorbs moisture easily (1 kg of wool contains approximately 150 G of water).

It is relatively ductile but regains only with difficulty its original shape.

A wool fiber measures from 20 to 80 microns in diameter and its length varies from 2 to 30 cm. The wool fiber is covered with scales; its section shows a kind of bark called cuticule where a channel grows hollow.

General information on the spinning mill

Art to produce textile wire, which draws its origin from the fundamental needs for the man (to nourish themselves, place themselves, to dress itself), can be regarded as being as old as humanity.

The man took as a starting point the animals which nature had liberally equipped with a Fourrure, first of all by vêtant skins of the died animals, then by taking the hairs of the furs, while ingéniant themselves to make with the latter of the wire which, interlaced or braided, gave finally fabric suitable to manufacture clothing.

The spinning mill is thus art to make, starting from discontinuous and irregular filaments as the hairs which constitute wool, a continuous wire having to have certain qualities required for its later destination.

Principal required qualities are solidity, elasticity, the regularity and the size (or " numéro") wire. To be able to make a continuous wire which has these qualities, it is necessary to transform wool while making him undergo a certain number of operations intended to purify and clean, disentangle and insulate, to parallel, regularize, refine and twist.

Transformations of wool

Shearing

The shearing of the sheep, for example, is carried out using an electric mower. One manages to mow a sheep in less than three minutes. The cut fleece is held of only one part, thanks to the tight tangle of fibers.

On average, a professional Sheep shearer mows 100 to 150 sheep per day and certain champions Australia NS reach to 300 sheep.

This operation takes place with the Printemps, in general once per annum. It happens that one can carry out two shearings in the year, because in the first months, the wool pushes particularly quickly.

Sorting

With the farm, the various parts of the Toison are classified in batches according to their quality. Indeed, a big number of foreign bodies and impurities are found in the fleece (of which the wool represents between 2 and 8 kg) and can represent until the 2/3 of the weight of this one. These impurities are mainly the Suint (residue of the Sueur), of the grease, the ground, the Sable, the Paille, the disseminated Graine S by Zoochorie and of the Chardon S.

The fleeces are then folded and rolled in balls (of 170 kg on average) before being forwarded to the centers of sale, then towards the textile factories. Five million wool balls thus leaves each year Australia towards the transformer countries located in Europe, America and especially in Asia.

Washing

Naturally fatty, the fleeces retain vegetable dust and remains. Also this wool, known as raw wool , it is initially washed and dried. There are five phases:

steeping (to remove the maximum of ground);
degreasing (recovery of the suintine);
washing;
rinsing;
then comes the phase from dry (neither too much nor too little - if it too dry: big problem out of carding house because of static electricity and if it too wet, the vegetable matters will be held and leave with the ribbon; the carding brush will not be able to do its work, to eliminate the vegetable matters in addition to paralleling fibers).

The grease, or grease , is recovered and refined, to be used in pharmacy and in the manufacture of the beauty products under the name of Lanoline. However, all the fat contents are not removed. A negligible part is left on fiber, if not it would be impossible to work (boiled wool from where static electricity and problems out of carding house).

Carding

In this operation, it is a question of disentangling wool. It is initially oiled, i.e. impregnated of a emulsion intended to facilitate disentangling; then it passes in the carding brush: drums furnished with very fine steel points, turning at high speed, divide and parallel wool fibers and retain the vegetable impurities which could remain.

According to the final use for which the wool is intended, it will follow, starting from carding and until the transformation into wire, one or the other cycle following:

the combed cycle, follow-up preferably by fine wools. They leave the carding brush in the form of ribbon continuous, flexible and homogeneous, known as ribbon of carding brush . The ribbon will undergo the operation of combing before being transformed into wire. The worsted will give fabric S and Tricot S of dry and fine aspect.
the carded cycle, followed by wools of larger fiber diameter. They leave the carding brush in the form of fine wicks which will be directly transformed into wire. The carded wool will give fabrics and knittings of more rustic aspect.

Etymology

The word carding derives from Chardon , plant roughcast of prickly which pushes along the ways. In its displacements, it is not rare that a herd of sheep rubs against thistles and hangs some wool flakes there.

The shepherds of formerly rubbed the fleeces with bouquets of thistles to obtain a more flexible and clean wool.

Défeutrage

The fibers composing the ribbon at the exit of the carding brush are not rigorously aligned; some are still gotten mixed up: as it is said as they felt. Before combing this ribbon, it should be de-felted, i.e. to regularize it, parallel it and rectify fibers of them. One proceeds by three successive passages on machines which assume the doubling and the drawing of the ribbons. This part is called also the preparation it is a preparation of kind to put the ribbon at the standards (weight for the setting on woolcombing machine).

Combing

This operation complete and perfect the carding of wools passing by the combed cycle. The combing mainly aims at eliminating fibers very short, called noils , and the last small impurities which still remain. With this intention, the ribbon of carding brush passes through a succession of increasingly fine combs. Like carding, the combing provides a raw material for the spinning mill, in the form of ribbons of combed.

Spinning mill

Dyeing

Weaving

Weaving consists in intersecting wire, combed or carded. The wire laid out in the direction length of the fabric part constitute the chain, the wire laid out in the direction of the width form the screen.

On the Weaving loom, the wire of chain, aligned perfectly, are raised alternatively to allow the Fil of screen, pulled by a small device which animates a rapid back and forth pass (the shuttle) to intersect with them. The wire of screen is aligned perpendicular to wire of chain, until the fabric part is finished.

Knitting

Finishes

After weaving or knitting, fabrics and knittings are subjected to a succession of very varied operations of finishing: the finishes, which will give them their final aspect and their touch.

The fabrics can, for example, being scraped to make their surface more velvety, or pressed (i.e. last between rollers which compresses them whereas they are still wet) in order to return them dense and felted.

They are then ready to be sold with the meter in the stores or delivered to the makers who will cut and sew clothing in series.

Production of wool

F = Estimate of FAO | * = semi-official Information Source: Economic and social department, the division of the statistics of FAO

Symbolic system

The Noces of wool symbolize the 7 years of Mariage in the French folklore.

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