Fiber (textile)

“ Other silicates are also transformed by artificial processes into fibrous forms, such as “glass,” which is fused and drawn or spun to a continuous fibre, and various “slags” which, in the fused state, are transformed into “slag wool.” Lastly, we note that a number of metals are drawn down to the finest dimensions, in continuous lengths, and these are woven into cloth or gauze, such metallic cloths finding valuable applications in the arts. Certain metals in the form of fine wire are woven into textile fabrics used as dress materials. ”

“ II. Papermaking.—The papermaking industry (see Paper) employs as raw materials a large proportion of the vegetable fibre products already enumerated, and, for the reasons incidentally mentioned, they may be, and are, employed in a large variety of forms: in fact any fibrous material containing over 30% “cellulose” and yielding ultimate fibres of a length exceeding 1 mm. can be used in this industry. Most important staples are cotton and flax; these are known to the paper-maker as “rag” fibres, rags, i.e. cuttings of textile fabrics, new and old, being their main source of supply. ”

“ As already indicated, paper, which is a web composed of units of short dimensions produced by deposition from suspension in water and agglomerated by the interlacing of the component fibres in all planes within the mass, is a species of textile. Further, whereas the silks are mostly worked up in the extreme lengths of the cocoon, there are various systems of spinning silk wastes of variable short lengths, which are similar to those required for spinning the fibres which occur naturally in the shorter lengths. ”

“ It is obvious that while the spinner has to do with these filaments, the paper maker works up the ultimate fibre constituents or fibres. It is also an obvious corollary from this distinction that a fibrous material which from “weakness” is unavailable for textile application, may yet be perfectly “strong” from the paper maker’s point of view; in other words, the individual fibres may be strong, but have little cohesion in the filaments. ”

“ A. The fibre is in virtually continuous lengths. The textile yarn is produced by assembling together the unit threads, which are wound together and suitably twisted (silk; artificial silk) .
B. The fibres in the form of units of variable short dimensions are treated by more or less elaborate processes of scutching, hackling, combing, with the aim of producing a mass of free parallelized units of uniform dimensions; these are then laid together and drawn into continuous bands of sliver and roving, which are finally drawn and twisted into yarns. ”

“ A few moments’ consideration of the changes which the fibers undergo from their condition of isolation as they exist mixed in the vat, to their status as components of a sheet of paper, will help to make clear much that seems obscure about the behavior of a sheet of finished paper, as well as to explain the reason for the different processes executed on the paper-machine.
The fiber is a hollow, collapsed tube, the ends bruised and frayed by the treatment in the beating and refining engines. Absorptive in nature to a marked degree, it swells with the water it takes up and is limp and flaccid. ”

“ The lap of cotton then goes to the carding rooms, where it is combed into parallel fibers by means of a revolving cylinder covered with fine wire teeth, sometimes 90,000 of them to the square foot. On leaving the carding machines the lap has become a gossamer-like web thirty-nine inches broad. This web is next passed through a small “eye” which condenses it into a narrow band about an inch in width, known as the sliver. By this time the fiber has been so drawn out that one yard of the original lap has become 360 yards of the sliver. ”

“ If the larger part of our better fabrics—cordage and fine twines, bagging, and similar rough goods—can be made from cotton, flax, common hemp, and Sisal hemp, which we ought to be able to produce in quantity at home, there is no further need of costly experiments with other fibers. Unfortunately, however, it is possible for manufacturers to "discriminate" against a particular fiber when the use of another fiber better subserves their private interests. ”

“ Carriage robes also claim a good share of the skins; the hair, being nearly one foot in length, makes them beautiful and serviceable. The fiber enters largely into that class of goods known as Astrakhan, Crepons, Plushes, Brilliantines, Zibelines, fine Cashmeres, and many other fabrics usually sold as all wool or worsted, according to the [Pg 84] mode of preparing the stock before spinning into yarn. It is found in the finest of silk and worsted fabrics for ladies’ wear, also in linings, mittens, and fine cloaking and overcoating. ”

“ The matured fibres always collapse in the middle as described, and undergo no change in this respect when passing through all the various operations to which cotton is subject, from spinning to its conversion into pulp for paper-making.
Linen, or Flax Fibre, under the microscope, appears as hollow tubes, open at both ends, the fibres being smooth, and the inner tube very narrow, and joints, or septa, [10] appear at intervals, but are not furnished with hairy appendages as is the case with hemp. ”

“ Both continuous and staple fibers can be made from basalt. Continuous fibers are produced using standard glass fiber production equipment. After the feedstock is fused in an electric furnace, the melt is fed to electrically heated platinum.rhodium bushings containing 200-300 perforations. As shown in figure 4.7 (Subramanian et al., 1975) , a drum winding pulls the fibers from the platinum.rhodium bushing perforations. Fiber diameter is a function of melt temperature and drum or centrifugal nozzle speed. ”

“ The Sisal hemp machines are too rough in action for so fine a fiber, and, at the rate of ten leaves to the pound, working up a ton of the material would mean the handling of over twenty thousand leaves to secure perhaps three dollars' worth of the commercial product. Were the fiber utilized in the arts, however, and its place established, it would compete in a measure with flax as a spinning fiber, for its filaments are divisible to the ten-thousandth of an inch. ”

“ Examination of Fibres.—The exact chemical analysis of [Pg 44] a new fibre is necessary in order to establish completely its value for textile and paper-making purposes, but the investigation of the suitability of the fibre for paper-making may be simplified by simple reduction of the raw material with caustic soda. ”

“ Other Fibers While the fibers we have already discussed—Manila and Sisal—comprise by far the greater part of the raw material of cordage, we wish to mention in this chapter a fiber which, while now of comparatively slight importance, has the interesting feature of being a home product, and the cultivation of which at one time formed an industry of considerable magnitude in this country. ”

“ The microscope is the only sure test for telling cotton and linen fibers. One can sometimes discover shoddy mixed with the all-wool fiber because of the color. Shoddy is sometimes made of old colored woolen rags. ”

“ I. Textile Fibres are mostly products of the organic world, elaborated in their elongated form to subserve protective functions in animal life (as wool and epidermal hairs, &c.) or as structural components of vegetable tissues (flax, hemp and wood cells) . It may be noted that the inorganic world provides an exception to this general statement in the fibrous mineral asbestos (q.v.) , which is spun or twisted into coarse textiles. ”

“ It is necessary at this stage to point out that the work of the paper-maker and that of the textile manufacturer are complementary one to the other, and the supply of fibrous raw material is correspondingly divided: it may be said, indeed, that the paper industry subsists upon the rejecta of the textile manufactures. The working up of discontinuous fibre elements into thread, which is the purpose of the complicated operations of the spinner, is conditioned by the length and strength of these ultimate fibres. ”

“ The fibre is decidedly inferior to flax and hemp in strength and tenacity; and, owing to a peculiarity in its microscopic structure, by which the walls of the separate cells composing the fibre vary much in thickness at different points, the single strands of fibre are of unequal strength. Recently prepared fibre is always stronger, more lustrous, softer and whiter than such as has been stored for some time—age and exposure rendering it brown in colour and harsh and brittle in quality. ”

“ In due course the boll bursts, exposing the mass of fluffy fibre from which the plant derives its extraordinary value. The superiority of cotton over other vegetable fibres, such as hemp or flax, is in the natural twist, which makes it inherently adaptable to spinning. The single fibre consists of a hollow tube having transverse joints at irregular intervals, and this tube, when dry, has a tendency to flatten out and curl. The more of this natural elasticity is found in the fibre the better it is for spinning purposes, and an immature fibre is for this reason unsatisfactory. ”

“ Cotton fibers differ. We shall learn how the fiber is pulled from the seeds. This process is called ginning and is done by a machine. If you have a microscope in your school, look at a cotton fiber under the glass. Miss James will send for some fibers. You will see that it looks like a ribbon which has been twisted. The natural twist helps very much when cotton is twisted or is manufactured into yarn. Cotton is a wonderful little fiber and varies in length from 1⁄2 to 2 inches. The cotton called Sea Island cotton is the long fiber cotton, and is grown near the sea, for it needs the sea air. ”

“ With advancing civilization and refinement came demands for superior fabrics, which could only be answered by a supply of better fibre. Such fibre could only be secured from the bale by separating the long from the short, a problem well calculated to tax the ingenuity of an enlightened age. Attempts had been made to do this by hand implements not unlike the curry-comb of to-day, except that the teeth were long and tapering. This remained the only means employed for years, while other textile machinery passed through its phenomenal period of development. ”

“ The textile trade, on the other hand, depends on a raw material composed of strong fibres, or of filaments characterised by great length, and any processes of treatment which tend to reduce the length of such fibres are carefully avoided, and it is therefore obvious that fibres which are of no value for textile purposes can be appropriated for paper-making. ”

“ Manilla [3] yields the strongest of all fibres. Jute, which is the fibre or inside bark of an Indian plant (Corchorus capsularis) , yields a strong fibre, but is very difficult to bleach white. Esparto fibre holds an intermediate place between the fibres just described and those of wood and straw.... The fibre of straw is short, pointed, and polished, and cannot of itself make a strong paper. The nature of wood fibre depends, as may readily be supposed, upon the nature of the wood itself. Yellow pine, for example, yields a fibre long, soft, and flexible, in fact very like cotton ”

“ Flax Pulp.—This material was to be obtained from flax straw. Attempts were made on a commercial scale to produce quantities of flax fibre, but so far the efforts made have not been very successful.
(2) Ramie Fibre.—This material has been exploited over and over again, chiefly for textile trades, its application as a paper-making material being limited to small quantities used for special purposes such as bank notes. The fibre is too valuable, except for textile industries, and can only come into the paper trade as a waste material from such sources. ”

“ The silk fiber consists of a thread spun by the silk worm.
6. Wool, mohair, and silk fibers are obtained from the animals, the sheep, goat, and silk worm, hence they are called animal fibers.
7. Detach from the sample of cotton cloth a filling thread and separate it into fibers. These are cotton fibers and are obtained from the cotton plant.
8. Examine the sample of linen, a filling thread and its fibers. Linen is composed of fibers obtained from the flax plant.
9. Cotton and linen fibers are obtained from plants, and are called vegetable fibers. ”

“ The animal fibres are relatively few in number but of great industrial importance. They occur as detached units and are of varying dimensions; sheep’s wool having lengths up to 36 in., the fleeces being shorn for textile uses at lengths of 2 to 16 in.; horse hair is used in lengths of 4 to 24 in., whereas the silks may be considered as being produced in continuous length, “reeled silks” having lengths measured in hundreds of yards, but “spun silks” are composed of silk fibres purposely broken up into short lengths. ”

“ Sharp action between the roll and the bed-plate will, no doubt, make speedy work of the fibre, but the result will be short particles of fibre only, which will not interlace to make a strong felt. Indeed, the action I refer to will reduce the long, strong fibre of linen to little better than that of wood or straw. ”

“ The long fiber wool is commonly carded, combed and spun into worsted yarn. The short fiber is usually carded and spun into woolen yarn. The short fiber obtained in combing long staple wool is called "noil." ”