Spinning is a very important operational process in the textile sector. And textiles by themselves have immense relevance in today’s world, since the use of fabrics and fabrics for clothing and other processes are concomitant to human activity in general.
People rarely reflect on the footprint that textiles have in their daily lives, from footwear or clothing, to making soap, cellulose, or tires. Thanks to the new eco-sustainable trends, the textile industry has sought to optimize its processes to create a sustainable industry, with a greater use of ecological materials, less use of energy, water, and other chemical products.
GK is one of the largest textile manufacturers in the region, with presence in countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, and is one of the pioneering companies in the use of sustainable strategies for the execution of its production processes. For that reason, and so that you can understand roughly how textile spinning and making works, we share with you the process and operation of a spinning mill.
How does a spinning mill work?
The industrial revolution brought dynamic changes to our daily lives, and the textile manufacturing process was one of them. Spinning mills and textile factories, such as GK Spinning Mills in Honduras and Nicaragua, are spaces in which fiber is transformed into yarn, and yarn into fabric.
The spinning process is an initial step to produce final textile designs, such as the garments and fabrics that we use in our lives and in our homes. The main actor in this process is the spinning machinery, by means of which several steps are added to convert the fiber, be it cotton, or wool, into yarn, and to process it further until it results in a textile as such. This transformation goes through several levels:
Step 1: the blowing room
The blowing room consists of various machinery through which the raw cotton bunch is converted into material destined to provide yarn. This is the simplest part of the process, as the compressed cotton samples are opened, cleaned, and mixed according to a particular length to form a specific size.
Step 2: carding
Carding is the process that defines the final characteristics of the thread. Once the cotton or other fiber has been stripped of its blemishes in the blowing room, these are transferred to the carding machine. Here, the yarn bales that have been processed are transformed into a single fiber. This also facilitates the elimination of impurities that remain on the surface of the fiber.
Step 3: the combination
At this stage of the process, the yarn is arranged in a parallel way and straightened, crossing its fibers, which have already been cleaner and more defined, to convert what we generally know as wool. This will result in a stronger and smoother cut fabric that will have more handling when transforming it into a fabric or garment.
Step 4: the flattening
In this part, strokes are made on the wool according to the shape you want to give it. It also involves converting multiple strands of that primary fabric into a single strand. Then a stretching and flattening is carried out, in order to reduce the fiber turns or the chips that still persist in the yarn. The carded fabric is stretched between a series of rollers to produce fully stretched fabric.
Step 5: the rings
The yarn and the first fabrics that have already been correctly flattened are placed in ring frames that are used to produce finished yarns from the slightly less perfect textures obtained in the previous stages. From this phase a yarn is obtained that has a good amount of resistance to withstand a weaving process.
Step 6: the winding
Winding is a simple packaging machinery that functions as a link between the last stages of yarn manufacturing, and the initial stages of the fabric manufacturing process. Here the thread is basically wound in the presentation that we know him.
After this procedure, the fabrics will be ready for dyeing and finishing, all of which implies an essentially different process. When the semi-finished product has been obtained, it is managed with different methods, which are those that already convert the primary product that we have seen here into fabrics and fabrics as such.
“We believe in corporate social responsibility, we are a central manufacturing unit of the textile industry, but we must have a positive impact on the communities in which we operate”, Honduras Spinning Mills.
You might want to read Understanding the universe of yarn and what type you should use when knitting