OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2752, 22 April 1916, Page 8

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER

ELECTRICITY IN WOOL

(From Our Special' Correspondent.) ■' ■ .Bradford, February 25,'191G. ' There is 110 doubt that one o£ tlio iiiiest discoveries duviiig the past 25 years lia.i been electricity 'and tlie harnessing ' ■ of' ounie for the good of the Svorld. Few readers will need' to be reminded that itven wool. fibre .contains a considerable amount of electricity, and under centain conditions it makes itself felt in a most uniooked-for and, disagreeable way. The writer was. talking to a well-known Bradford'merino yjy-'n spiiuior oii&'day, wlic 10 narrated ah experience which w< nghly .uovol ami instructive. 'The ma has j>een ,in the business nil-his lif "{'/'iA n< " v " '' as ' bordering towards th allotted span !of man. Ho narrated an e-> psnence which for the timb ballled bot hipselt and employees, and led to tli opinion that wool was' charged with, elei tricity, because it_ would not spin, as i ougut to. do.- . This was particularly i evidence, in' the drawing operation, an trhenuhe wool came to be spun tl breakage and the amount;of waste ira alarinipg-. To, all 'appearance there wo nothing .whatever wrong with the tops the combing had been well done the ;rer« a good .length, full of'quality,'anl they ought to have spun most readily t< the length; required." Evidently there wa something, radically wrong with the whol tiling, and to discover. what it was am ' find a remedy was what taxed the though ot all concerned. ' Let the reader bea . m mind that this was no'isolated case o spinning,, Other firms in th.e trad© wer • likewise troublod/ and still the problen . remained unsolved. Let us now leavi ■ the j, subject where it elands until latei in this article, when the writer will giv< •the reader tho remedy. So long as time was of: no great imporwnce, the electrification of fibres was not a serious matter. Owing to th« Government 'demands for large and continuous supplies of yarns suitablo for Army , and Navy' cloth, hoivever, there has been a speeding-up of manufacture, and ,it is through tho endeavour of spinners to turn out ever-increasing quantities •of tops, yarns, and fabrics, that the culties* of the electrification of fibres nave_ become emphasised. It has been i.? U ? I.i s * ?• Co . ulic J bas long been known, ; that the drawing and spinning of wool m an ' uniaged" condition cannot be' done ; successfully. Either, therefore, the wool tops must be allowed to stand their usual three months, or means must be found to ; eliminate that electrification ot fibres : which makes the three rest necessary. Research , Work in Leeds. ' By a happy association of the Textile ; Institute and the University of Leeds, a very important work of research, which ; may have far-reaching effects in the wool .textile trade of Yorkshire, has just been undertaken at the University under the direction of Professor A. F. Barker The research is intended to discover and- find means of eliminating what is known as the 'electrification of fibres/' which is a form of annoyance, and the cause of much delay, ir. manufacturing processes. Wool, when it comes into the mills of tho West Riding manufacturers,' is first washed, carded, back-washed,' and combed. It is when the last-named process has been completed that it is found that electrification of fibres has occurred. This electrification arises in two ways—first from tho friction of wool on metal, and secondly, ' from the friction set up botween -the. fibres themselves. Is the wool passes through ijp various operations, both these causes take-effect,'the final result being that the wool is left positively charged with electricity. This is a state of things which has long been accepted in the mamifactuiin" M/.dustry as a necßSsary evil. Evil it undoubtedly has been, for, it has occathe laying-up for about three months of the partly-manufactured wool before the next operation could bo pro* cetded with. That is because tile electrical charge in tho wool has caused tho fibres to fly apart—to become so "wild," as they say inttho trade, that they would not smoothly follow the pn.th designed for them in their subsequent passage through I machinery. It has been found in prac- I tice, however, that.tops and rovings which have' been allowed to rest for three months or so. have almost lost their electrified state, and so it has been a recognised thing in the' trade for many years that,after' combing the wool tops should bo allowed to stand for three months. It is to .tlw fassinatipg task of golyax.

the latter problem that the researchers at the university are applying themselves. If they. succeed—as thero is good roason to believe tliey will do—in finding a means of suppressing the generation of electricity in fibres, they will not only secure a- more speedy output of tops, yarns, and fabrics, but will onsuro tho production of stronger yarns, hotter capable of withstanding tho strain of wearing.

Whilst silk and cotton, as well as wool, become olectrified during their manufacturing processes, the difiicultics arising therefrom are only of consequence m wool manufacture. That is because wool, owing to its being a non-conductor, and comparatively short in fibre, is markedly ' disturbed by electrification; whereas cotton, which is a conductor (of electricity) is not seriously interfered with, and silt, owing to its longth m hbre, is more susceptible to control. : Tho Remedy. i Let us now go back to where we started. We will loavo the textile department of the Leeds University to announce the remedy for the above, which no doubt they will do in time. If they can instruct the trade what to do to remedy this serious fault, and so make spinning le6s- expensive by eliminating waste, they will certainly confer a" boon on to the entire industry. But the spinner to • whom wo have already referred soon, found the remedy which can be applied ;by everyone. All. those having connections with tho spinning of tho wool tops already referred to wero satisfied that there wuu nothing wron» with the wool fibres, tnoy were simply charged with electricity. Experts said that there was an escape from i e . And that tho current was dominating, the roving and spinning frames. (Experiments proved that there was nothing of the sort whatever. Everything, seemed to hinge upon the fact that the tops wero being spun too soon alter had been combed, in other words, there was not sufficient "condition" or moisture in tho wool 'fibres. - Evidently this fact has been found out by the professors at the Leeds University. If after combing tho wool fibre passes through a somewhat high temperaturu some natural condition can be reinstated into, the fibre, that-will certainly remedy tho drawback. Wlat did the spinner in question do? He simply told his son to take three or four bobbins of roving and wrap them in a damp cloth and leave them overnight, which ho did. Next morning these bobbins were put back in the spinning frame. All the electricity had gone, the roving spun splendidly, while the'very next tops in the spinning frame still manifested the same degree of electricity as, they had done before and spun badly, while those that had he-n' damped spun to perfection, Ih e tops had been too .dry, the air in (.lie spinning-room was also too dry, c.-inbo* qu'ently the man went over'to Lancashire to a well-known machinist, ordered a humidifier, installed same, and has had no further trouble whatovor with elecI tricity in wool. Let no one think- that the use of this humidifier was of is tltngerous to the operatives. Although one was installed in the • drawing-room, and another in the spinhing-room, tho lattev is now never used, and that in the drawing-room is only used in tie extreme heat of summer, and when the air outside is moist it is found absoiutoiv unnecessary to use it. . " I Let no one surmise that wool should M wet. The whole European t-ade baa established conditioning houses for tho benefit of the trade, experience having proved that wool in r natural state contains about IS) per cent, of moisture; this being the official re-gain of the Bradford Conditioning .House when wool tops are iieing tested. Anything above that- h taken off the invoice, ami anything below that is added. • . The Bradford Market. A chango has come over this centre., Recent cable information rhat top- 1 making wools have" fallen 10 per cent, nt Melbourne have bad a somewhat damping effect, and under the • existent circumstances spinners have become quit-j willing to indulge in further, operations till it is.seen how the forthcoming series in London commence. Ideas respecting that event have had to be somewhat revised, and even in crossbred'wool thero is less confidence expressed respecting higher prices. This Is so in spite -of the quantity of orossbreds available being no more than the trade is likely to be able to use, but as already suggested the Tecent turn has brought about: a more reserved attitude; An average Gl's tops is not now 1 worth anv more - than 44sd, i in the market, while, a fO's prepared "is around 28J4. ; '