Factory Loom To Make Carpets At Fair

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29138, 25 February 1960, Page 25

Factory Loom To Make Carpets At Fair

The great progress of New Zealand’s manufacturing industries since the Second World War are demonstrated by the exhibit of Felt and Textile (New Zealand), Ltd., at the Industries Fair. A 27-inch spool Axminster loom on display will produce body carpet throughout the period of the fair. Towering above the other displays—it is 14ft high and weighs 4 ton 12cwt—the loom is from the Riccarton carpet factory. While the loom provides the most eye-arresting exhibit, the surrounding displays in the special court show the increasing range of industry in this country.

The exhibit covers 4160 square feet and is one of the largest ever built in the South Island. It contains more than £lO,OOO worth of equipment, fittings and products.

These range from underfelt and carpets, engineering felts such as filters, pads and washers, millinery felts for waistcoats and hats, to footwear, furniture and moulded foam for car upholstery. , The floor coverings division of the company is now the largest section of the manufacturing organisation; but when the company first began operations it was concerned with footwear. The manufacture of footwear has steadily expanded and at present women’s shoes, slippers of all grades and plastic sandals are produced in factories in Lower Hutt and Christchurch. Examples of these sandals, which are made in a single operation by an injection moulding machine, one of the most up-to-date mass producing footwear machines in the country, are among the wide display of footwear. All the products exhibited are shown in their various stages of manufacture, from raw material to finished article, and the exhibit as a whole underlines the increasing technical “know-how” and industrial growth of New Zealand.