Wool Industry
What is the Wool Industry?
The wool industry essentially revolves around everything in relation to wool, beginning with the breeding of sheep, through to the final woolen product.
What are the processes of the production of wool?
Breeding sheep
Merino sheep are the most common sheep breed in Australia, due to their high quality wool fibre. Other species of sheep that are bred for their wool include Rambouillet, Blue Faced Leicester, and Corriedale.
Shearing sheep
When the sheep are ready, the shearer catches the sheep and then takes it to his "stand" on the shearing board. There, he uses his shearing clippers to remove the wool using an efficient set of movements.
Washing the wool
The wool is then washed using soap or being soaked in an acid bath. This is to get rid of all the grease, oils, vegetable matter, and other things that make the wool unclean.
Roving the wool
The final process of carding is when the machine divides the web into small strips, called pencil rovings. These pencil rovings are then placed onto a spinning frame/rack to create yarn, as the rovings currently have no twist.
Carding the wool
Brushes similar to the ones used on dogs are used to comb through the wool to create a web of wool. This can either be done by hand or it is put through a machine containg "drums" that transfer the wool from drum to drum.
Grading and sorting the wool
People judge the wool based on what part of the body it came from and how good the quality of the fibres are. Sometimes the wool that is not of high quality will be used for rugs, and the ones that are are turned into jumpers, for example.
Spinning the wool
The spinning rack takes small strands of the pencil rovings and then twists them. One of these single strands is called 1ply. Because only one of these strands aren't strong enough on their own, multiples of these strands are woven together repeatedly to create thicker, stronger yarn. The spinning rack can do this process with up to 90 rovings at one time.
Winding the wool
After the yarn is created, it is wrapped around cones, bobbins or commercial drums. Most of the time, before this happens, the wool is dyed, fixed so the yarn lasts longer, and made shrink proof.
Finished product
The yarn can either be sold as just yarn, or it can be woven into fabric, or it can be made into clothes. Dyeing can occur from anywhere between before the carding to after it has been woven into fabric.