The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1968. Progress In New Zealand Woollen Mills

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1968. Progress In New Zealand Woollen Mills

Successful production on a commercial scale of shrink-proof knitting wools should arm the wool industry powerfully for its fight against synthetic fibres. The success of Mosgiel Woollens, Ltd, should do much to enable wool spun from tops to match or surpass the qualities of synthetic fibres. Consumers will soon have the opportunity of confirming this manufacturing success which is the result of a combined effort by the Wool Board and the Mosgiel Company. Other mills have also introduced, or are introducing, manufacturing processes to reduce the shrinking of wool; and the New Zealand industry should soon be well equipped to meet the shrinkresistant specifications recently imposed by the International Wool Secretariat on most knitting wools which carry the Woolmark label. Mosgiel’s Sirolan process—the name given it by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia —has yet to prove its superiority over other processes, which are now being adopted by New Zealand mills, or which will soon be adopted by them. Under these processes, shrink resisting resins are applied to wool fibres continuously during manufacture. If one formula proves to be clearly more efficient than the others, or more acceptable to consumers, it should not be difficult for mills to convert their equipment to suit that formula. On several counts the Mosgiel development is notable. New Zealand’s woollen mills have been criticised, sometimes unfairly, for not keeping abreast of technical advances and for failing to match their designs and fabrics with the demands of the trade. The public certainly want garments that do not shrink when put through washing machines. The Wool Board has demonstrated that it can co-operate usefully with a manufacturing firm to bring a scientific advance to the production stage. Like many scientific advances, the discovery of this resin was not made through the research of the industry that now uses it The resin was first used by the paper industry to strengthen paper when wet. Its antishrink properties were subsequently explored by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and tested in a pilot plant at Geelong. For all this success, wool scientists still have one important field in which they must try to match the qualities of synthetic fibres: their resistance to wear. The wearing qualities of the best wool carpets, for example, are unquestioned; but synthetic fibres can produce the same resistance at lower cost. The blending of wool and synthetic fibres and the strengthening of wool by polymer grafting—a process on which wool scientists are now working—together hold out real hopes that wool will be able to come to terms with the competition from synthetics.