3. Modern Reeling Methods
Reeling Basins
While being reeled the cocoons are floated in basins of very hot water, each basin feeding a reeling machine. A single cocoon strand is too fine to use commercially, so several are taken at a time, varying from three to seven or eight according to the size of thread desired. The size used in this country most extensively is known as 13/15 deniers and is reeled from six or seven cocoons. During the reeling the water is kept at about 60° C., but if the cocoons are very dry a higher temperature is required. A heavy smoke issues from the basins and not only humidifies the room but also penetrates the silk, rendering it very gummy and hard. This is overcome by the use of steam-heated tubes running over and around the machines.
Each reeling machine and basin is in charge of a girl who is responsible for its operation and for the reeling of thread of correct size. She must keep careful watch that the filament comes off the cocoons steadily and that all breaks are immediately taken care of, exhausted cocoons being replaced by new ones at the proper time. In many filatures each girl is charged with so many cocoons and must turn in a proportionate amount of reeled silk at the end of the day.
Twisting
Human Element
The twisting operation is an important part of the reeling process, for the raw silk threads, being composed of parallel cocoon filaments, cohering only by their natural gum, would, unless twisted, mat up and become unworkable. Various methods are used to obtain this torque, the general idea in each case being to run the separate cocoon threads through small rings or eyes and then unite them in one thread large enough to reel. In spite of the many mechanical devices and improvements brought out in the last few years, the success of the reeling operation still is dependent on the reeling girl’s ability and care. It is particularly important that she be able to judge the number of cocoons of a certain size and texture needed to make a thread of the required denier.
Rereeling Room
Testing the Skeins
Color of Raw Silk
The raw silk is reeled on travellers in hanks known as skeins and varying from 50 to 100 grams in weight, which are taken off by the reeling girl and the ends of the thread tied up to facilitate the work at the mill. Before leaving the filature it is also subjected to critical tests and examinations for size, winding, cleanliness, irregularities, etc. The color of raw silk as it comes off the cocoon and is reeled into skeins is either white or yellow, though some sorts have a brownish or greenish tinge. Tussah silks have a brownish-yellow color. The coloring matter in the cultivated silks is only in the gum and boils out with it, but the color in the tussah is in the fibre, rendering it very difficult to bleach.
“Books” of Raw Silk Skeins
Reeling Wild Silk
Waste Silk
Tussah, or wild silk, is not generally reeled by the wet reel process, as the cocoons are apt to be closed up at each end by gum. In China this gum is softened by burying the cocoons in manure instead of immersing them in hot water. This is known as dry reeling. It very often happens that the tussah cocoons are unfit for reeling, due to being pierced or tangled. Silk from these imperfect cocoons is again classed as “waste,” along with the frisons, or outside and inmost layers of the cultivated cocoons, which, as has been stated, are used to make spun silk. In this country waste silk is often called schappe, although strictly speaking this name should only be applied to waste silk degummed by the French process of fermentation.
Baling
Picul Bale
The raw silk, having been reeled and twisted into skeins, is next marked and tied together in bundles of skeins known as “books” each bearing the mark or “chop” of its grade. These are packed in bales for shipment, the weight of the bales varying in different countries. In Japan and China they are called picul bales and weigh 133⅓ pounds. Italian silks, on the other hand, are packed in shipping bales of about 200 pounds.