Making Your Socks Last

Northern Advocate, 30 November 1948, Page 4

Making Your Socks Last

DUNEDIN. Tue. P.A.L—Experiments to test treatment designed to give increased wear and resistance to abrasion in woollen fabrics which are being made in the New Zealand Woollen Mills Research Association’s laboratories at the University of Otago, promise good news for consumers. The laboratory tests are almost complete and in a number of cases further experiments are being carried out by individual woollen mills in New Zealand.

The treatment, which had been successful in laboratory experiments, would have highly beneficial results on the life of socks, for example, said Dr F. G. Soper, professor of chemistry at the University of Otago, and director of the New Zealand Woollen Mills Research Association.

The process has been given extensive tests by research workers who have reported favourably on cs'Stance to abrasion showq by fabric 6 - treated by it. Exper ; ments made with two pieces of the same woollen cloth, one treated and the other in its usual state, show signs of wear in the latter, but no change in the former. The Otago experiments have been concerned solely with articls of clothing, but more extensive tests have been made in England where carpets, among other items, have been used to show the value of the process.