Felt

Felt

§  Background

Most materials area unit woven , which means they're created on a loom and have interlocking warp (the thread or fiber that's arrange lengthwise on the loom) and woof (the thread that cuts across the warp fiber and interlocks with it) fibers that make a flat piece of material. Felt may be a dense, non-woven material and with none warp or woof. Instead, unwoven material is formed from matted and compressed fibers or fur with no apparent system of threads. Felt is produced as these fibers and/or fur are pressed together using heat, moisture, and pressure. Felt is mostly composed of wool that's mixed with an artificial so as to make durable, resilient felt for craft or industrial use. However, some felt is formed entirely from artificial fibers.

Felt might vary in breadth, length, color, or thickness looking on its meant application. This matted material is especially helpful for cushioning and lining because it is dense and might be terribly thick. Furthermore, since the fabric is not woven the edges may be cut without fear of threads becoming loose and the fiber unraveling. Felted fibers typically take dye well and craft felt is out there during a multitude of colours whereas industrial-grade felt is mostly left in its wild. In fact, felt is used in a wide variety of applications both within the residential and industrial contexts. Felt is employed in air fresheners, children's bulletin boards, craft kits, holiday costumes and decorations, stamp pads, within appliances, gaskets, as a clothing stiffener or liner, and it can be used as a cushion, to provide pads for polishing apparatus, or as a sealant in industrial machinery.

§  History

Felt could also be the oldest material known  to man, and there area unit several references to felt in ancient writings. Since felt is not woven and does not require a loom for its production, ancient man made it rather easily. Some of the earliest felt remains were found within the frozen tombs of mobile horsemen within the Siberian Tlai mountains and date to around 700 B.C. These tribes made clothing, saddles, and tents from felt because it was strong and resistant to wet and snowy weather. Legend has it that in the center Ages St. Clement, United Nations agency was to become the fourth bishop of Rome, was a wandering monk who happened upon the process of making felt by accident. It is said he stuffed his sandals with tow (short flax or linen fibers) in order to make them more comfortable. St. Clement discovered that the combination of moisture from perspiration and ground dampness coupled with pressure from his feet matted these tow fibers together and produced a cloth. After turning into bishop he found out teams of staff to develop felting operations. St. Clement became the patron saint for hatmakers, who extensively utilize felt to this day.

Today, hats are associated with felt, but it is generally presumed that all felt is made of wool. Originally, early hat-making felt was made exploitation animal fur (generally beaver fur). The fur was matted with different fibers—including wool—using heat, pressure, and moisture. The finest hats were of beaver, and men's fine hats were often referred to as beavers. Beaver felt hats were created within the late Middle Ages and were abundant in demand. However, by the end of the fourteenth century many hatmakers produced them in the Low Countries thus driving down the price.

§  Raw Materials

Felt is produced from wool, which grips and mats easily, and a synthetic fiber that gives the felt some resilience and longevity. Typical fiber mixtures for felt embrace 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 employed in the assembly of wool embrace 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 employed to neutralize the oil of vitriol.

§  Quality Control

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 your time the material is within the acid bathtub is exactly calculated by weight and length of yard sensible, lest the piece is ruined. Finally, the corporate manufacturing industrial felt has got to check its merchandise against a governmental normal for the merchandise. The government has determined that 16 lb (7.3 kg) density felt must be 1 in (2.5 cm) thick, 36 in (91.4 cm) wide, 36 in (91.4 cm) long, and weigh 16 lb (7.3 kg). If the felt weighs but this, the material isn't dense enough and doesn't meet government expectations for that grade of felt.