CROSSBRED WOOL PILOT PLANT TAKES SHAPE

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32565, 26 March 1971, Page 16

CROSSBRED WOOL PILOT PLANT TAKES SHAPE

A start will be made about the middle of ndkt month to install machinery in the new crossbred pilot plant which is being built at the Wool Research Organisation at Lincoln.

The building is being erected at a cost of about $350,000 and basic plant to the value of about $200,000 will be installed in the early stages, including new equipment worth about $lBO,OOO. Dr D. A. Ross, who is the head of the products and processing section at the organisation, said that machinery for special projects would be acquired as decisions were made to proceed with these and when staff were available. Machinery areas in the new plant were expected to be virtually completed by the end of May and the laboratory areas by the end of July, Dr Ross said. It was hoped that most of the new machinery from overseas would have arrived by the beginning of October and would be installed by the end of the year. It was likely that operation of machinery would begin about August or September, in the first place to run it in and gain experience with it. Dr Ross said that the basic equipment would include machinery to make woollen yam, including a card and spinning frame, and semi-worsted machin-

ery which would be using part of the same card and also including two gilling machines and a semiworsted spinning frame. They would be installing the Bradford system worsted drawing and spinning machinery, which had been given to the Organisation by Alliance Textiles, Ltd. The initial machinery would also include dyeing equipment and drying and high temperature steaming machinery and there would also be a limited range of knitting machines for evaluation of crossbred yams. This type of machinery could be used to assess such treatments as shrinkproofing and moth-proofing. They would also be installing a tufting machine for manufacture of caqjets and two old but versatile looms for making fabrics and also twisting and winding machinery that was an essential part of such an installation. A machine for artificially crimping wool, which is already in New Zealand, would be installed at Lincoln at the end of the year and in collaboration with the Wool Board and the International Wool Secretariat Dr Ross said it would be used to evaluate this

technique with wool for blankets and knitting wools and for semi-worsted as distinct from woollen carpet yams. Dr Ross noted that most similar establishments overseas were geared to handle only Merino wools and the equipment was not suitable for use with the coarser wools, but the machinery for the Lincoln plant had been selected for its suitability for processing crossbred wools. Wools of 46s to 50s counts would be those that they would be working with mainly. An advantage that the Lincoln plant would have in working with crossbred wools would be that the whole range of these wools would be readily available to it

Dr Ross said that early work in the new plant would include evaluation of the manufacturing significance of such basic characteristics as length, diameter and colour in coarser wools, and also the importance of preparation characteristics, such as classing, on manufacturing performance. A second major field of investigation would be the manufacture of carpets from wools of known characteristics, which would be used in the Organisation’s major programme of evaluing the wear and performance of carpets. “We believe that we know more about the mechanism and mode of carpet wear and performance than any other carpet group in the world,” Dr Ross said this week. They virtually had a basic understanding of how carpets performed on the floor and were close to having a carpet wear simulater that would be able to reliably evaluate carpet wear, not only in wool carpets but also synthetics and blends, under a wide range of conditions. Work would also be done in the pilot plant on setting the twist in carpet yams, which was very important in shag pile carpets and high twist carpets and where it was wanted to piece dye carpet fabrics, which were made in the grey colour. Dr M. G. Narsian had been working in this field at Lincoln and had carried out quite successful trials that could be of considerable commercial value- both in New Zealand and overseas. These were the main projects that would be receiving early attention, Dr Ross said. “I think that the pilot plant here will be very important,” said Dr G. Laxer, director of product development and technical service for the International Wool Secretariat, who visited Lincoln last week.

Dr Laxer said he had advocated the establishment of the plant when he was here in 1967. It was important for New Zealand to be able to tell its customers—hopefully through the I.W.S.—how the various wool types produced in this country behaved in manufacturing efficiency and also their performance in end products. v The only way to learn this was by doing the sort of work that would be done in a pilot plant. This’ sort of information would be extremely important for any raw wool pro-

motion that the Wool Board might be carrying out in the future with the LW.S. ’ Thus for the production of sliver knit apparel fabrics, which was developing rapidly and with which they hoped to achieve penetration in Europe as well as America, they needed to know how the various New Zealand wool types behaved in sliver knitting and how they also behaved in the final form. The same was also applicable to needle bonding for floor covering. Information was needed about carpet types for this outlet. A feature of the interior design of the plant building is that it is free of crossbeams to facilitate movement of machinery and services are carried above in V sections in the roof, which will have a smooth finish so that they will not catch so much dust and wilt be easily cleaned. Inside the plant humidity will be controlled and and there will be heating. In the accompanying photograph the pilot plant is to the left of the laboratories of the Wool Research Organisation.