Carbonizing and bleach process

[Phillip Ford]

>I have made some research to understand why some felt was sold to us to be 
>"carbonized" while other does not advertise on that.
>In fact in the old times, since 1860 or so, there was only machines to 
>clean the wool from the thistle and vegetal residues (it was even hand 
>cleaned, by prisoners, was said, before 1860 and the apparition of "the 
>leviathan" a machine developed by Mr. De Laoureux de Serviers, who lived 
>in SERVIERS, in Belgium, and this town was the "only"  European place for 
>wool washing and preparation before making cloth or felt with it (till 
>other places appear near Hamburg in the 1910 ) The wool yet came from 
>south America, England and other countries as well.
>
>Then around 1880 a chemical process including the use of acid (liquid or 
>vapor) was used to 'carbonize' the vegetal in the wool. The process gives 
>a brown color to the wool and then it have to be bleached (with bleach) to 
>get white again (while may be it can be leaved without bleaching, as find 
>in some traditional felt cloths.
>
>With a goggle research I have find the declarative papers from the French 
>"water agency", that our actual wool washers (in washing columns) are 
>using, as the process is using a lot of water, that is contamined then 
>with dye and other products and may be recycled or treated.
>
>I asked at the Wurzen factory and had a talk with someone who was kind 
>enough to tell me that those days all the wool is carbonized to get rid of 
>vegetal, that is the usual process.

I'd never heard of carbonizing before, so I did a little web 
search.  Apparently, not everyone uses this process, but most do.  Here's 
an interesting link:

http://www.morehousefarm.com/Wool/

I noticed a few sites that say that carbonizing makes the wool less 
soft.  Also, some people are allergic to the acid that they use for 
this.  People that think they are allergic to wool are actually usually 
allergic to this acid instead.  Perhaps Wurzen will have to come out with a 
AAAA quality felt with non-carbonized felt.

I notice that Morehouse Farm also raises the 'rare black Merino 
sheep'.  Black piano hammers anyone?


>
>Then some wools are a little yellow, and other are bleached to death (like 
>the Laoureux hammer felt which is very white). I don't know but I suspect 
>the lanolin staying within the fiber differ depending of the strength of 
>these processes.

I would think so.  My natural inclination is to think that a lot of 
bleaching is not good for the felt.

>  .....
>I'll ask that question also to the Wurzen people, about the action of 
>lanolin in keeping the fiber springiness, but I guess too much lanolin 
>goes against the felting density (fulling).

Yes, I would think that too much lanolin would inhibit the felting 
process.  With all things there's a happy medium.

Phil Ford