NEW USES FOR WOOL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 49, 28 January 1932, Page 2

NEW USES FOR WOOL

LEATHER COATS AND FISHING BOOTS.

DISCOVERED BY BRITISH ' ' SCIENTISTS. WALL AND MOTOR OAR „ BODIES.

(From a Correspondent.) LONDON, Dec. 23. A greatly increased use of wool os a raw material will follow the advances of science. We are only beginning to understand how wool can be exploited, and the Australian and New Zealand grower will see an expanding market for his product. These are views held by one of Britain’s foremost authorities on wool, Dr. S. G. Barker, the author ofa text-book on “Wool Quality” published this week by the Empire • Marketing Board. Dr. Barker is director of research at the Wool Industries Research Association at Torridon, near Leeds, England. He has collected all the-scientific knowledge available about wool quality in a book of. 330 highly technical pages, many of which deal with the outstanding scientific work now being done by the Commonwealth Councillor Scientific and Industrial Research . in Australia. The work of the New Zealand ; Department of Scientific and Industrial Research which bears on wool producItion is also reviewed. 1 “Commercial con-' ditions to-day are such that, in comi petition with artificial fibres, there is no room for ignorance even of the minutest details of wool,” he says.;,

NEW USE FOR WOOL. ' Dr. Barker’s latest discovery at the laboratories is a secret process for making artificial leather out of 'wool. When 1 visited Torridon this week I was shown a dozen different, “leathers,” each . of them soft, strong and beautifully finished.

"Here,” said Dr. Barker, handling a thick brown sheet of material, “is 1 a leather suitable for fishing boots or suitcases. Tests have shown it to bo exceedingly durable and strong." , ‘‘Hero is another, in all shades, for making into ladies' golfing coats or gloves. This one,” he produced another roll, “is; as you see, a patent leather. But it is absolutely un-crackable.” He crumpled it up in his hands apd, sure enough, no cracks could be seen when it was smoothed out.

Those “leathers" are being made by a firm near Leeds. Already one of the railway companies and one of the biggest motor car manufacturers in the country have agreed to try out the wool “leather upholstery” and some is undergoing practical tests. Another wool material suitable for covering "fabric bodies” for motor cars has been made. Experiments with other wool fabrics for wallpapers are nearing completion. Another new use for wool discovered at Torridon is in the insulation of electric cables. Cotton always used to be employed, but it was, of course, inflammable. Now several big firms of cable makers are using a’wool insulation, which gives a danger warning by smouldering and which will not burn. ... WOOL CONFERENCE .RESULT.

These successful experiments- follow closely on the recommendations of the Imperial Wool Conference which was summoned in London by the Empire Marketing Board only last year and passed a resolution. urging that the question of finding new outlets for wool sliouid be explored. Dr. Barker suggests in his book that, just as no two finger-prints are alike, so no two wool fibres are exactly the same. Each strand is different; he believes, in many essential properties. Practically every fibre,, for instance, takes a different shade of dye, although the variation may be so slight as to be invisible to the untrained' eye. - Finding out just what an individual fibre weighs is one task of the modern j scientist. The weight, says the report, “varies enormously,” the lightest fibre being Australian Merino and the heaviest Border Leicester. An electrical weighing-machine can detect a change in weight. of 0.00000007 ounces. Wax models of individual fibres, which vary with different breeds of sheep, have been made. MEN BEAT MACHINES. A thorough study of the relationships between tne diameter and shape of tne fibre, and the quality, has been occupying the attention of the Torridon scientists for the past three years. This has . been financed by the Empire Marketing Board. The technique of the wool dosser and the wool -sorter has been analysed scientifically and it has been found that woolmen in all countries of the world unwittingly follow a definite mathematical law in their systems of (grading. As a result an international 1 rule for sorting, which" brings all the systems into relation with one another, has been laid down. - - -

Dr. Barker’s conclusions are a great tribute to the. skill of the wool classer and sorter who, although guided only by hand and instinct, sorts the fibres almost as accurately as an infallible scientific instrument. Dr. Barker, described an experiment designed to test the accuracy of the sorter’s definition of quality. A wool-classer in New South Wales was asked to divide wool into three typical qualities. These were then measured under the microscope which almost exactly confirmed the classer’s relative qualities. , “Various attempts hgve been made to reduce the practice of wool classing to a more or less precise technique, but it is obvious that the skilled clnsser will, in point of time taken for results obtained, be difficult to replace by any mechanical method,” Dr. Barker concludes. ”, TEAM WORK DEVELOPMENTS. '

Co-operation with the Dominions has always been a key part of Torridon’s policy. Work in which Torridon is cooperating with the wool experts of the Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is now being done for instonoe to find exactly how differences in feeding of sheep affect qualities of the wool, ;such as elasticity and dying properties. ; Another example l of Empire team-work -is the working out at Leeds of a new marking fluid for sheep which, while resisting wind and weather, will not permanently cling to the fleece, as 1 is the case with tar.

To illustrate the. harm which can be done by tar, I was shown a number of unfinished hats. Each one was pookmarked with a series of black • spots, and could only be scrapped by the manufacturer. Each spot represented -a tiny grain of tar wluch did not make itself visible, I was told, until the felt was rolled. . .- The now .fluid is founded largely on the sheep’s-own grease. It can be completely removed in scouring, leaving no trace in the final cloth, even when “marked” wool is used. This fluid is being used more and more in Australia and South Africa."; NO MORE YELLOW FLANNELS. I was shown round the chemistry department by Mr A. T. King, who has invented an entirely new principle of bleaching. It all arose, he. explained, because a woman who had been cooking over a gas stove complained that her woollen jumper had faded. An investigation was started, arid.it w;as found that sulphur dioxide, the principal gas used for bleaching, forpis certain hitherto unknown chemical substances when it is combined with a certain amount-of alkali. These compounds may- be of cpite different shade to the original ' "The upshot of this investigation was,

that the well-known habit of white flannels and other white (bleached) cloth to go yellow after several washings has been completely overcome. A new method of bleaching has been worked out whereby washing only makes the cloth go whiter. There is no chance of a tinge of yellow creeping in, because the chemicals which were responsible for yellowing are completely eliminated from the cloth. A Yorkshire firm have adopted this new bleaching process for all their cloth with very marked success. '[•'