FIFTY TONS A WEEK

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3150, 29 July 1942, Page 5

FIFTY TONS A WEEK

OUTPUT OF FLAXMILL FIBRE FROM MANGAITI MILL NOW FULLY STAFFED The tearing sound of highpowered machinery stripping green leaves, acres of paddock and miles of fences draped with bleaching fibre destined to become the woolpacks and ropes so greatly needed if New Zealand is to make good her war effort are now featured at the Mangaiti flaxmill. Renovations, including a new plant and practically a new building, have been proceeding for several months and the mill, practically fully staffed, began work last week, states the “Te Aroha News.” While the plant has the capacity of turning out eighty tons of fibre a week, the amount recorded last week was fifty tons. The average, however will speedily be, brought up as new. men gain experience and “old hands” who have been absent for years from the industry, regain their deftness.

New machinery, too, had its problems for the staff and as the manager, 'Mr N. R. Nattrass, explained, took a little “running into order.” Cutters are now busy in various parts of the widespread district from which the flax is being drawn and enormous loads are being delivered at regular intervals. And incidentally it certainly takes a lot of flax to make 50 tons of fibre! It means, to go into details, the cutting and stripping of 175 tons of green leaf and the cutting of flax from between 20 to 40 acres, according to the density of growth. How Fibre Is Produced

The production of fibre is a simple series of processes, yet calls for considerable skill on the part of the millers. After ''passing over the weighbridge, trucks deposit their load in huge piles, the blades of flax, for convenient handling, being already tied up in bundles. These are conveyed by a worker to the man in charge of the stripper, which is the first of a series of processes. The stripper is not a large machine, as modem machinery goes, but it has an insatiable mouth and deeding it requires great speed from the man who passes the flax blade by blade into it.

The Stripper

Technically speaking, the stripper lias 22 heaters travelling at the rate •of roughly 2600' revolutions per minute. Flax which enters the mouth as dark green (blades with thick, fleshy butts, emerges as greenish-white fibres. And the fibres are very fine for the stripping process requires them to pass between bars which have only the thickness of tissue paper between them. Actually their passage is ensured by the “spring” of the machinery as it takes the shock of the incoming material.

A once trying job i n flaxmilling is now eliminated by special machinery. which trips the fibres and washes away the vegetation from which they have been separated. They are then arranged in “hanks” (explained roughly as the quantity of fibre obtained from two blades with a twist in it for keeping it together in convenient form) and again washed on a huge wheel. From here they pass out on a waggon which takes them to the paddock. Could Be Used While all this is happening to the fibre, the green vegetation washed away from it is carried off by a drain to the river. Although at Mangaiti this at present is waste, it makes excellent green fertiliser •and a mill in Blenheim, by using a •dry instead of a wet “trip” on the stripper, is able to save a large proportion of it for cattle fodder.

It has excellent food value of a nature similar to ensilage. In some of the bigger mills concentrating on other kinds of flax products, all the very short pieces of broken fibre are also used for the manufacture of feltex fo rladies’ slippers. For Woolpacks

At Mangaiti, however, production is for the manufacture of woolpacks. This has been declared essential by the Government and so great is the need for production that men have been released from military duties in order to work in th? industry. While the making of woolpacks needs the greater proportion of • good, long fibrbs, it is possible to mix with them a percentage of -shorter ones without in any way injUiting the general utility of the product. The long fibres and the dnf'erior ones, however, are paddockSeparately and despatched separ-

ately to the processing mills at Foxton.

For both classes of fibre, the process is essentially the same. They are spread thinly upon the paddock and turned in a manner reminiscent of hay, then, after the bleaching process is completed, they are hung upon fences to dry out. This takes a longer' or shorter period according to weather. Finally they are “hanked up” and pressed (rather like wool) and despatched to the other mills (Foxton in Mangaiti’s case) to be manufactured into woolpacks or whichever of the many products for feltex for ladies’ slippers. Of the staff at Mangaiti several are local men who will be wellknown to the district. Mr Harold Watson is in charge of the stripping and Mr E. J. Best is in charge of the paddocking. The manager, Mr N. R. Nattrass, was sent to the district by Woolpacks and Textiles, Ltd., to organise the mill. He and Mrs Nattrass have been in residence on the mill property for some time.

Other members of the staff include one or two “old-timers” who have returned to the industry, and several newcomers. Great satisfaction at the progress of the newcomers was expressed recently by Mr Nattrass in the course of an interview.

(Somewhat of an enthusiast for the revival of the industry, Mr Nattrass dwelt in detail upon the future of flax. It was, he said, grown in lands which would be wasted for other purposes and yet, as illustrated by the present war, when supplies of jute were cut off from overseas, provided an essential product. Flax could be made into woolpacks, sugarbags, sacking, horse and cow covers, tarpaulins, floor covers (an example shown was much superior to the well-known coconut matting) and many other . fabrics Besides all these was rope, and at present the military authorities were using tremendous quantities of this for camouflage netting.

“By bringing the product up to a reliable standard it is an industry which will survive the war and provide work at decent living standards for many New Zealanders, and will put us well on the way to standing on our own feet for many of our necessities,” Mr Nattrass concluded.