Steps Of Wool Processing

Wool is a natural fiber obtained from animal hair, mainly from sheep's hair. Wool processing involves many operations, both dry and wet processes. The processes carried out in a woolen mill can be grouped under the headings- Fiber Shearing and Grading; Fiber Preparation; Weaving Operations; and Finishing Operations.

1st Step: Shearing Sheep Wool

Normally, we shearing wool two times a year (in the spring and autumn),but in some areas, the farmer only cut the wool once a year.It depends on the breed and living environment of the sheep or goat.But you have to be careful, wool can't be too short.(40--50mm is better).

2nd Step: Washing Greasy Wool

Washing wool is a very important step.

As we know,sheep or goat live in farms,and the greasy wool is very dirty,and there are some grass,urine, feces, sweat,dust and other impurities in the wool. Sometimes as much as 30-50% of the weight of the fleece is not wool.

You have to wash it to remove oil and lanolin, urine, feces, dust,so that wool is cleaner and no peculiar smell. This can be done using soap or detergent and a lot of water or it can be done by submerging the wool in an acid bath which dissolves all the vegetable matter as well as the grease (this is called scouring).After dewatering and drying, it is ready for carding.

Marks: You can wash the wool by professional wool washing machines or by hands.Of course,you can get washed wool from other suppliers.

3rd Step: Picking

4th Step: Preliminary Opening

Using the interactive function between the opening machine parts to destroy the adhesive force between the fibers in wool blocks ,to make the wool block opened and gradually separated into small pieces of wool and wool bundle. At the same time, some impurities in the wool is removed, to create favorable conditions for fine opening and carding .

The opening roller is oblique,make full use of centrifugal force.Combined with the suction fan and evenly fall into the pretreatment room,and there is an automatic water adding device to spray water on the wool,and the wool will be stored in this small room for about 18-24 hours(It depends on the quality of wool), so that wool becomes moist, soft and difficult to break.(The humidity is about 50-70%).

5th Step: Opening and Carding

In this step,the clean and dry wool is passed through wire rollers to straighten the fibers and remove any remaining impurities.

It looks like cotton carding,but much more complicated than cotton carding.It needs several machines with different functions to work together.According to different raw materials,you usually need six roller opening machine, wool opening machine(Fine opening machine), flat carding machine and sheep wool carding machine.

The function of Wool Opening Machine(Fine Opening Machine)

The main function of wool opening machine is to make the wool fiber into a regular arrangement of single fibers and very fluffy.So that some coarse wool and other impurities can be removed and reduce the damage to wool fibers caused by opening machine and carding machine.As long as the wool is fully loosened, the effect of carding can be guaranteed.

How to reduce the damage to the fiber caused by the machine is a very important problem.The objective factor affecting wool price is the fineness, length and color of wool,we can't change the fineness and color of wool by opening or carding machine,What we can do is try our best to reduce the damage to fibers.

The function of Flat Carding Machine

The most important function of this machine is that it can remove the coarse wool very well,and nearly 50%-70% of coarse wool is removed at this stage.

There is a conveying curtain at the bottom of the machine,the waste fiber(coarse wool) will be sent to the designated collection box,thereby saving labor and protecting workshop environment. What’s more, the coarse wool removed by flat carding machine is very clean,it can be used to make wool felt ,thermal insulation material or other wool products.

The function of Sheep Wool Machine

Sheep wool carding machine is mainly used to remove the dandruff. Sheep wool or goat wool are animal fibers, just like our hair,there are some dandruff (Especially when the living environment of sheep or goat is relatively dry).If the dandruff can not be removed completely,the fabric will be dyed unevenly and the yarn will break easily.

Another important function of sheep wool carding machine is to remove the coarse wool,which is can not be removed by wool opening machine or flat carding machine.After working with this machine, all the dandruff, coarse wool and other impurities can be removed out totally and then you can get dehaired wool/cashmere with high quality.

6th Step: Blending

Wool Blending/Mixing Machine

6th Step: Dyeing

Wool fibers absorb dyes very efficiently at any processing stage. But you can save many dyes when you do it after carding and mixing.The most important,the effect of dyeing is better.

7th Step(Semi Worsted or Worsted Spinning) : Slivering (Wool Top Making)

In this step,the dehaired wool/cashmere will be made into wool top or cashmere sliver.To be equipped with FN288 electronic weighing feeder, it can make the feeding amount more evenly. And the extreme difference range of wool top is less than 0.3-0.5 g/m. After this the wool tops will be collected by coiler and storage into cans,ready for next steps. And the next process is spinning.