Felt how is it made

Cleaning, opening and blending process:. The fibres animal wool contain a lot of fats and are thoroughly cleaned and made free of fats and dirt by scouring process. Since some felts uses more than one type of fibre, the cleaned fibres must be mixed and blended together before any processing begins. Usually, bale openers are used to accomplish this purpose. These blended fibres are now passed into a carding machine using hopper feeders.

This makes the fibres parallel to one another and delivers them in web form. At least two carding machines carding cycles are employed by passing the first web through a transporter to a second machine; this produces a new web which is thicker and fully carded. The stuff has to be distributed as evenly and uniformly as possible both horizontally and longitudinally on the actual web makers.

Several different web are combined sandwich laid to create one thick web. Four layers of web considered a standard single roll, sometimes referred to as a batt. Batts are layered in order to create different thicknesses of felt.

The basic rule is that the quality of nonwoven bounded fabrics such as felt can only be as good as that of the fibre web or fleece the web has been made into.

Since the carders are not equipped with any storage facilities, any mass fluctuation in the feed will reappear unchanged in the card web, and once the fleece has been formed it cannot in the course of further processing be made more even and the irregularities present often have a decidedly negative effect on the mechanical and physical properties such as strength fitter effect etc. The manufacturing process:. The batts for making felted material must be hardened or matted together in order to create thick, densely felted material; this is achieved through the process out line below:.

The batts are subjected to heat and moisture by passing them through a steam table. The wetted batts are fed into a plate-hardener that shrinks the width of the fabric. The plate-hardener consist of a large square flat bed with a large plate that drops down over the wetted hot batts, exerting pressure on the material and compressing it. At the same time, the plate-hardener oscillates from edge to edge further matting the fibre to a specific width. Alternatively, a roller hardening machine can be used; here the batts are pressed by rollers rather than by plates.

The above batts are fed into a fuller or fulling machine, which shrinks the length to specific measurement. As it shrinks, the felt becomes denser. The batts are fed through a set of upper and lower steel rollers that are covered with hard rubber or plastic and are molded with treads much like a car tire, enabling them to move across the felt.

The felt is continuously wetted with hot water and sulphuric acid solution. The upper rollers remain stationary as the lower rollers are moved upwards to put pressure on the fabric and push it against the upper rollers. All the rollers, both upper and lower move together forward and backward. The pressure, the acid, the hot water and the movement causes the batts to shrink in length, making the felt even denser.

Example, a piece of felt that is 38 yards long may come out of the fuller at only 30 yards in length. Thicker and harder than woven or knitted wool, felt provides an excellent barrier against cold temperatures, and this woolen material is not scratchy against the skin. As most children and parents know, felt is also a popular crafting material, and you can use your imagination to make practically anything with felt. Most felt designed for crafting, however, is acrylic, which is less comfortable against the skin and more harmful to the environment than woolen felt.

Therefore, the majority of woolen felt was manufactured in Australia, though in some cases, Australian sheep farmers ship their raw wool to China for finishing. Genuine wool felt is reasonably expensive, but it is usually around the same price as other wool textiles.

Felt made with acrylic or other synthetic fibers is less expensive, but it does not have the same beneficial attributes as wool felt. Over the centuries, textile artisans have developed quite a few different types of woolen or fur felt. More recently, fabric manufacturers have deviated from the norm and started making felt with materials other than natural animal fibers.

In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, wool felt shares the beneficial attributes of its base fiber, including absorbency, fire resistance, and impressive insulative properties. To this day, some textile manufacturers use beaver pelts to make felt hats and other accessories. While not as in vogue in the era of animal rights, fur felt is useful due to its impressive durability and high malleability.

Acrylic felt has become increasingly popular over the last century. Cheaper to produce than wool, acrylic felt offers some of the same benefits as conventional felt. Unlike wool or fur felt, however, acrylic felt is highly flammable, and it is uncomfortable when worn against the skin.

Commonly used in industrial and medical applications, rayon felt shares the hydrophilic properties of wool felt. One of the major benefits of rayon felt is the ability to shape this textile into various insulative products, but like all synthetic textile fibers, rayon is a non-biodegradable pollutant. Pressed felt is the most common type of felt, and it is also the oldest. Produced by combining textile fibers into a mat using water, heat, and pressure, this type of felt is usually sold in sheets and shaped into various consumer, industrial, and medical items.

Artisans use specialized needles to make needled felt figurines and other three-dimensional products. This type of felt is not insulative or used for industrial purposes, and instead, most needled felt products are decorative in nature. Woven felt is a type of felt fabric that textile manufacturers produce by applying heat, water, and pressure to pre-woven fabrics. The result is a matted, highly insulative fabric that can be much thinner than pressed felt. The only potential environmental issues associated with these types of felt regard land use and proper animal stewardship.

In the modern era, harvesting animals for fur is considered to be cruel and barbaric, and in some cases, wool production can involve animal cruelty and cause pollution or soil erosion. Natural fibers are, however, invariably better for the environment than synthetic textiles. But the result is a very dense fabric consisting of permanently interlocked fibres. Felt is typically composed of wool or other natural raw materials, which generally produces the highest quality and softest fabric.

Wool also matts very easily, making it ideal for this fuzzy fabric. However, adding synthetic fibres into the mix such as polyester or acrylic can improve the product depending on its intended use.

Adding a percentage of synthetic fibres can increase felts durability for certain crafts or industrial use. It can also increase pliability. A common fibre sometimes added to wool is rayon. Rayon removes the prickly feeling that pure wool can often have against the skin. Meaning that a synthetic mix is the best of both worlds!

As mentioned, the process of creating felt can be pretty labour intensive. It involves various steps of blending the fibres, matting the material, shrinking and steam-pressing. Crafts enthusiasts use it for all types of projects. Many teachers find it to be an easy fabric for children to handle because once it is cut the edges do not unravel as do woven fabrics.

Industrial applications for felt have burgeoned, and felt is found in cars as well as production machinery. Felt is produced from wool, which grips and mats easily, and a synthetic fiber that gives the felt some resilience and longevity. Typical fiber combinations for felt include wool and polyester or wool and nylon.

Synthetics cannot be turned into felt by themselves but can be felted if they combine with wool. Other raw materials used in the production of wool include steam, utilized during the stage in which the material is reduced in width and length and made thicker. Also, a weak sulfuric acid mixture is used in the thickening process.

Soda ash sodium chloride is utilized to neutralize the sulfuric acid. The manufacturing process of felt. Quality control begins with the arrival of the materials. Materials are checked for quality and weight. Some companies purchase wool that has been scoured and baled; the purity of the bales is examined upon entry. Other important quality control checks include continuous monitoring of the carded webs, since the web sizes are important first steps in producing the desired length and width of the felt.

Once the batts are shrunk in width and length, the company checks the weight, density, width, length, and evenness of the batts. When production is complete, visual checks may reveal that the surface of a batt is slightly uneven and additional pressing may occur to even out the surface. The acid baths are also very carefully monitored. The amount of time the fabric is in the acid bath is precisely calculated by weight and length of yard good, lest the piece is ruined.

Finally, the company producing industrial felt has to check its goods against a governmental standard for the product. The government has determined that 16 lb 7.

If the felt weighs less than this, the fabric is not dense enough and does not meet government expectations for that grade of felt. There is some waste generated in felt production. When the edges are trimmed, small pieces are cut off. These small pieces are often impregnated with oil and grease from the machinery and are unusable for other purposes.