WOOLLEN MILLS BUSY

Southland Times, Issue 24161, 25 June 1940, Page 6

WOOLLEN MILLS BUSY

WAR-TIME INDUSTRY

WEAVING FOR SOLDIERS’ UNIFORMS (Special to The Times) WELLINGTON, June 24. Some of Wellington’s busiest wartime scenes are in a Hutt Valley factory where 400 men and girls are hard at work all day converting the wool of New Zealand sheep into warm khaki cloth and air force blue, and in another factory in the city 'here 400 more cut up the cloth and sew it into uniforms and garments for the troops. For the defenders of New Zealand will march into battle wearing garments of pure wool wholly grown and manufactured in the country they go forth to protect. The fleeces, straight from the shear-ing-shed or the station agents’ store, go into the factory in the raw state, just as the farmer sells them. They leave the factory in the form of bolts of cloth, all ready for the tailor or clothier to cut it.

Few people who have not seen it can have any conception of the magnitude of this industry, or the scale on which it is producing the materials to clothe New Zealand’s soldiers. To follow the progress of the wool through the factory is most fascinating. First it is scoured in boiling soap and water; and mechanically dried. Wool for the manufacture of woollens is then dyed; wool for worsteds is dyed after undergoing the preliminary processes. The essential difference between woollens and worsteds is that the former comprise short fibres mad-? up in a matted or criss-cross formation, the latter long fibres laid parallel to one another.

The preparation of woollens, therefore, consists in carding the wool on cylinders bristling with fine teeth, which brush the fibres into a loose felt, to be divided into slivers suitable for spinning on the mule, which twists the woollen yarns such as are used for knitting or for the manufacture of woollen garments. For worsteds, however, ingenious machines prepare the scoured wool by working the fibres parallel, and shaping it into an endless hank of silky wool. This is subjected to more combing and the short fibres are brushed out. The spinning is then carried out by a somewhat different process from that used for woollens.

The final processes of manufacture are those of weaving. First the spun yam is arranged for the looms by winding the warps on to large drums; it is then placed on the loom, which automatically crosses and uncrosses alternate warps, while the shuttle bearing the weft is flung backward and forward between them.

A single loom will weave 30 or 40 yards of cloth in a day. There are nearly 100 looms busy in the Hutt Valley factory. The number and the cleverness of the machines which carry out these processes profoundly impress the visitor, and the speed and the general atmosphere of bustle, as much as the colours of the cloth being woven, are a reminder of the national service to which the greater part of their output is being devoted.