Laboratory-scale processing of the recycled material

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth owns a Davis and Furber sample woolen carding machine. The machine is also known as a roller top card. The machine was reclothed by the Redman company with aggressive metallic clothing. This means the drums and rollers in the machine were given new surfaces of metallic materials not unlike a continuous saw blade wrapped around the cylinders. The purpose of reclothing the machine was to simulate the gametting/ willowing processes. 

The output fibers (along with the small pieces of yam and fabric) were double carded with a flat top card, the type of machine nsed for cotton and other short fibers. The purpose was to further open the fibers and to produce a lap for subsequent processing into sliver and yam. Just as before, material was ejected at the hckerin, and material was found to build-up on the flats (these have the same function as workers on the previous card). The fibers were processed on the machine a second time now 25% new acrylic fiber was added as a carrier. Even so, a coherent web was only possible with constant gniding of the material by hand. 

The collected web then was processed on a drawing machine, which uses a series of smooth rollers to draft out the fibers. The residual small pieces of yam and fabric caused the fibers to move as bundles, not as individual fibers. The result was frequent breaks in the sliver. After three passages of drawing, the sliver was entered into a laboratory ring spinning machine. The material processed by this machine was so uneven that it was judged to be unspinnable. 

The carded and drawn material was collected, blended with additional amounts of acrylic fiber so that the resultant blend was 80% new acrylic fiber and 20% recycled material (the blue outer fabric). This blend was carded, drawn and spun 

It was possible to knit, from the yam, a small piece of fabric on a hand-driven circular knitmachine. However, itmust be borne in mind that (i) the fabric contains many clumps of entangled fibers giving it a poor appearance and (ii) this is not yet an efficient process with at least 50% of the input material removed as waste by the carding process. 

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