Wool and Wool Properties
Muhammad Rehan
▪ Wool is used in a variety of textiles and can
be found woven or knitted. Wool is the
dense, warm coat of sheep, also called a
fleece.
▪ The hair of sheep has many unique
properties that make it well suited to textile
production.
▪ something humans realized approximately
8000 BCE, when sheep first began to be
domesticated.
1
Properties of Wool
Crimp
Caused by the unique chemical and physical
properties of wool.
▪ The fiber tends to bend and turn in to a
resilient 3 dimensional structure.
▪ It holds in air to insulate the wearer.
▪ This property make wool naturally elastic and
resilient causing rapid wrinkle recovery,
durability, bulk, loft, warmth, and resistance to
abrasion. 3
Resistance to Fire
▪ Wool contains moisture in every fiber
allowing it to resist flame without any
additional chemical treatment.
▪ The wool will just char and self
extinguish.
4
Water Absorbency
▪ Wool can absorb up to 30% of its weight
in moisture without feeling damp or
clammy.
▪ This makes wool good for all climates
since it aids in the body's cooling
mechanisms to keep moisture away from
the skin.
5
Properties of wool
Dye ability
▪ Wool absorbs many dyes deeply, uniformly, and
directly without the use of chemicals.
▪ This characteristic allows wool to achieve very
beautiful and rich colors when dyed.
6
Durability
◼ The flexibility of wool makes it very durable.
◼ A single wool fiber can be bent back on itself more the
20,000 times without breaking.
◼ Compare this to the only 3,000 times of cotton and 2,000
times of silk.
◼ Its elasticity makes it very resistant to tearing.
◼ Wool also has an outer film making it resistant to
abrasion.
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Resilience
Wool fiber can be stretched up to 50% of its
length when dry and up to 30% of its length
when wet without breaking It will return to its
original length when released.
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Difference Between Wool And Hair Fibres
Wool Hair
* Have serration on its outer surface* No Serration on outer
surface
* Cuticle not smooth * Cuticle smooth
* Fine wool is without medulla * Medulla present
* Wool fibre is elastic * No elasticity
* Wool is crimpy * No crimps
* Possesses felting property * Does not possess felting
property
* Ignition point is low * Keeps on burning
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Average Average
Clean Wool Vegetable
Grade Colour Fibre Staple
Content Matter
Diameter Length
White
40.0 µ and Not less 70% and Not more
Pak Super Pale Yellow
above than 5 cm above than 5%
Yellow
White
Pak Pale Yellow 40.1 – 45.0 Not less 70% and Not more
Medium µ than 5 cm above than 5%
Yellow
White
45.1 µ and Not less 70% and Not more
Pak Coarse Pale Yellow
above than 5 cm above than 5%
Yellow
Light Grey
Pak Dark Grey Any Not less 70% and Not more
Coloured Diameter than 5 cm above than 5%
Black
Any Not less 70% and Not more
Pak Pieces Any Colour
Diameter than 5 cm above than 5%
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Shearing
The operation of
removing the fleece
from animals by
machine or blades.
Frequency of shearing
may be once a year,
twice a year, or three
times over two years.
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12
Chemical Nature Of Wool
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Chemical Nature Of Wool
▪ Wool is natural protein fiber that grows from the follicles
of the sheep skin.
▪ It is 90% made of keratin protein.
Wool consists of the
▪ Cortex
▪ overlapping scales intermesh
▪ elasticum
▪ the inner layer
▪ a core
14
Commercial Fiber
Processing
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Commercial Fiber Processing
1. Scouring
◼ The removal of all impurities from grease wool.
◼ use water, detergent, and sometimes a mild alkali.
2. Carbonizing
◼ Wool containing excessive amounts of vegetable
material is carbonized using an aqueous acid treatment
followed by heating which converts the cellulose base
defect into carbon.
◼ Neutralization and re-scouring complete the process.
16
Drying
◼ The amount of water held by the wool is
reduced to below 15%.
◼ Moisture in wool is removed by hot, dry air
blown through the wool prior to being exhausted
from the dryer.
17
Commercial Fiber Processing
4. Carding
◼ Number of cylinders and rollers of equal width but variable
in diameter and covered with short wires.
◼ Carding disentangles and separates scoured wool fibers.
5. Gilling (pin-drafting, drawing, blending)
◼ A blending and drawing operation that is applied to card
sliver before combing.
◼ The contact with pins and rollers opens and straightens
the wool fibers. 17
Commercial Fiber Processing
◼ 6. Rectilinear Combing
◼ Removing vegetable
◼ matter and short
◼ tangled fibers from wool.
◼ Arranging fibers in parallel
configuration, forming a
continuous, twistless rope of
combed sliver.
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7. Top Finishing
◼ Further blending fibers into a uniform
weight and thickness per unit of length
and winding into a ball known as top.
◼ Fourteen to 18 combed slivers are
combined and drafted in an autoleverller-
controlled gill box.
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Commercial Fiber
Processing
◼ 8. Spinning, Roving,
Winding, and Twisting
◼ Final drawing to the
desired yearn count or
thickness.
◼ Includes insertion of a
predetermined amount
and direction of twist.
◼ Delivery of yarn to
appropriate package.
◼
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9. Weaving
◼ Interlacing of two sets of yarn to form
fabric.
◼ A modern loom performs several
sequential functions, such as required
weaving type and color combinations.
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Commercial Fiber
Processing
◼ 10. Knitting
◼ Interlacing of yarn in a series of connected loops
by needles to form a fabric.
◼ *Hand knitting yarns have less strength than
those from machine knitting.
◼ 11. Finishing
◼ Anything that happens to a wool fabric after
leaving the loom until it is ready for the cutter.
◼ Characterized as mechanical, aqueous, drying,
and chemical.
23
Uses of Wool
The two major end uses for wool are
▪ Apparel products and
▪ carpets
both machine made and hand-knotted).
▪ Mattress and furniture stuffings
▪ Tennis ball covers
▪ Piano hammers
▪ Insulation
▪ Felt hats and toys
24
Uses of Wool
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Apparel Wool
Wool suitable for manufacture into clothing
products.
Belly
Fibre shorn from the belly of the animal, usually
heavy in condition and often containing
vegetation.
▪ In the case of male animals the portion around
the pizzle is stained with urine.
Blow
Each sweep of the hand piece or shears in the
shearing process.
Board
That part of the shearing shed where the sheep and
goats are shorn.
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Brand
◼ A temporary colouring agent applied to a small area of
an animal for identification purposes.
◼ The identifying marks on a bale of fibre.
Bulk Line
◼ The sale lot from a clip into which the majority of fibre
has been placed.
Burr
◼ Particular varieties of seed heads found in wool and
other fibres such as clover burr.
Catching Pen
◼ The pen from which the shearer catches an animal for
shearing.
Classing
◼ The grading of wool or other animal fibres into similar
categories, taking into consideration such factors as
type, fineness, length, style and fault.
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Clip
◼ Quantity of shorn wool from a defined area (farm or
locality) or group of sheep.
Coloured Wool
◼ A term used to describe wool with melanin
pigmentation.
Comb
◼ Stationary unit of shearing handpiece which enters and
holds the fibre as it is cut.
◼ A machine which removes short fibre (noils), neps and
vegetable matter and further aligns the fibres.
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Condition
◼ Refers to the amount of non-wool constituents,
such as yolk, sand, earth etc. present in greasy
wool.
Cortex
◼ Dense fibrous central region of a fibre.
Cotts
◼ Matted fleeces which require an additional
opening operation prior to the normal opening
at the start of the scouring chain.
Cotted Portions
◼ Matted parts of a fleece, usually around the
points, which require an additional opening
process.
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Crutchings
◼ Wool removed from around the tail end of
sheep usually in the autumn/winter to prevent
flystrike and to also make it easier for lambs to
feed from the udder.
Cuticle
◼ Surface layer of wool and hair fibres consisting
of overlapping scales.
Cutter
◼ Reciprocating unit of shearing handpiece which
cuts the fibre against the stationary comb.
Dags
◼ Animal fibre contaminated with hard clumps of
dried faeces, which is either adhering to, or has
been clipped from, the anal area.
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Down Tube
◼ Jointed tube containing a flexible drive shaft connecting
a shearing handpiece to an individual electric motor or
overhead gear.
Ewe
◼ Female sheep.
Expert
◼ Australian term for the person who grinds the shearing
gear and keeps the handpieces and plant in order.
Eye Clip or Wiggings
◼ Wool shorn from the face and head of sheep to prevent
wool blindness and which contains a high proportion of
kemps. 31
◼ Fault
◼ Any factor which limits a fibres end use or
incurs extra processing cost.
◼ Fellmonger
◼ Person who removes the wool from sheep
skins, and treats pelts.
◼ Fellmongery
◼ The premises where wool is removed from
sheep-skins to produce slipe wool and treated
pelts.
◼ Fibre Diameter (Mean)
◼ The average thickness of fibres in any parcel
expressed in micrometers (or microns).
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Fine
◼ Fibre assessed to be the thinner diameter within a
breed, flock or clip.
Fleece
◼ The coat of an animal.
Follicle
◼ Tubular depression in the skin from which a hair or wool
fibre grows.
◼ Free
◼ Fibre free from vegetable matter.
◼ Sometimes used to mean that the fleece is free grown
i.e., not cotted.
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Free or nearly free (FNF)
◼ Free or nearly free of vegetable matter (VM). A
term used to describe wool containing 1% or
less V.M.
Full wool
◼ Wool shorn annually.
Greasy Wool
◼ Wool in its natural state as shorn off the sheep.
Hair
◼ Fibre similar in chemical composition to wool
but containing a medulla.
Halfbred Wool
◼ Broadly used to describe wools of half Merino
and half long wool breeding.
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Hand-knotted carpet
◼ A carpet made by knotting tufts of pile
yarn onto the warp threads as the fabric is
woven by hand.
Hogget
◼ A sheep from 7 to 18 months of age.
◼ The fleece of a hogget which was shorn as
a lamb. 35
Kemps
◼ Short, straight, brittle, hairy fibres that are shed
and remain in the fleece.
Keratin
◼ Chemical substance of which animal fibre is
composed.
Lambs Wool
◼ Wool shorn from lambs. It is characterised by a
curly tip and soft handle and is generally finer
and higher yielding than full length fleece wool
from mature sheep of the same breed.
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Lanolin
◼ A product from the refining of wool grease (wax)
recovered during scouring and which is used in
cosmetics, ointments and a range of other products.
Liming
◼ The use of lime and sodium sulphide solution to dissolve
all remaining wool from pulled sheep skins or to remove
hair from cattle skins.
Line
◼ Several bales of fibre of a similar type.
Locks
◼ Very short staples of fibre and second cuts, which fall
from the fleece during shearing and skirting.
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Lot
◼ One or more bales of similar dimensions and
weight within commercial limits and of similar
fibre type, individually identified by number and
marks of origin and put together for the purpose
of sale.
Lustre
◼ The manner in which fibres reflects light. A
characteristic of most strong wools and mohair.
Medium
◼ The middle fibre diameter range within a clip.
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Pie wool
◼ Wool traditionally recovered from the head and shanks
of skin pieces of slaughtered sheep after decomposition
of the skin tissue. Process now replaced with slipemaster
process using hot water.
Pieces
◼ Poorer coloured, shorter heavy conditioned portions,
skirted from the perimeter of the fleece.
Pigmentation
◼ Black or coloured fibres formed by malanocyte cells
producing minute pigment granules, which evolve in the
follicle.
Pizzle Stain
◼ Urine stained fibres from the bellies of male animals or
crutch of female animals.
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Raw Wool
◼ Greasy wool; wool which has been scoured, carbonised,
washed or solvent degreased; scoured skin wools;
washed skin wools; and slipe wools.
◼ It consists of wool fibre together with variable amounts
of vegetable matter and extraneous alkali insoluble
impurities, mineral matter, wool waxes, moisture.
◼ Raw wool has not entered yarn or felt making process.
Scoured Wool
◼ Greasy or slipe wools that have been commercially
scoured, carbonised, or solvent degreased, excluding
washed and partly washed wools.
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Scouring
◼ Washing wool to remove the natural impurities of wax,
suint, and dirt.
Sebaceous glands
◼ Glands attached to all primary and some secondary
follicles and which secretes wool wax.
◼ Merinos with a higher ratio of secondary follicles produce
greater quantities of wax than coarse-woolled sheep.
Second cut
◼ A staple of animal fibre which has been cut twice
41
Shearing
◼ The operation of removing the fleece from animals by
machine or blades. Frequency of shearing may be once
a year, twice a year, or three times over two years.
Shearing board
◼ Area in shearing shed where animals are shorn.
Shearing shed
◼ Synonymous with woolshed. Building in which sheep
and goats are shorn. Commonly abbreviated to shed.
Shed Hand
◼ Synonymous with woolhandler. Persons, other than
shearers, employed to handle and usually prepare the
shorn fibre in the shearing shed.
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Skin Pieces
◼ Clumps of wool attached to pieces of skin
removed inadvertently during shearing and
which, if not removed prior to manufacture, will
cause problems in processing.
Slipe Wool
◼ Wool removed from the skins of slaughtered
animals, by a chemical depilatory which loosens
the wool fibres.
Slipemaster
◼ Machine used to remove wool from pelt
trimmings and head pieces in a fellmongery, and
with the aid of scalding water.
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Sound
◼ Evenly grown fibre, of good tensile strength throughout
the staple length.
Stand
◼ Area immediately surrounding an individual shearing
machine.
Staples
◼ A mass of fibres growing in bunches, or clusters and also
known as locks, each of which is held to the adjoining
locks by binders or fibres running obliquely from one
staple to another.
Strong
◼ Wool with a large fibre diameter for its type.
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Style
◼ The degree of excellence or fault in a line. A subjective
term broadly used to embrace character, colour,
condition, soundness, freedom from seed and other
faults.
Suint
◼ Natural water soluble impurity present in wool and
some other animal fibres, secreted from the sudoriferous
or sweat gland attached to the follicle.
Sweating
◼ Method of dewoolling skins dependent on induced
bacterial degradation to loosen the wool within the skin.
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Tare
◼ The weight of packaging material enclosing the fibre in
the bale.
Tender
◼ Fibre with a tensile weakness along a portion of the
staple length.
Unsound
◼ Fibres which are weak or tender in tensile strength.
Wool grease
◼ Natural impurities of wool (wax and suint) secreted by
glands attached to the wool follicle. Also called yolk.
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Woollen Processing
◼ The yarn produced by woollen carding and spinning
(condenser spun), and which is bulkier and fuzzy
compared to other yarns.
◼ These characteristics carry through to the texture of the
fabrics and knitted wares.
Woolmark
◼ Registered IWS trade mark denoting products made
from pure new wool, which also meet strict performance
criteria.
Wool table
◼ Slatted table on which fleeces are skirted and may be
classed.
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Worsted Processing
◼ The branch of the textile trade which uses mainly the
longer stapled fibres which are gilled to align the fibres
and combed to remove the noils and vegetable matter
and gilled to straighten the fibres.
◼ The yarn produced is very smooth and level and the
fabric clear and smooth handling.
Yield
◼ The amount of clean fibre, at a standard regain
expressed as a percentage of the weight of greasy fibre.
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