UNSHRINKABLE WOOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 January 1941, Page 9

UNSHRINKABLE WOOL

LARGE-SCALE TESTS MADE. GOOD PROGRESS RECORDED. Considerable progress has been made with the Frency-Lipson “unshrinkable wool" process evolved at the McMaster Laboratory in Sydney, both wool experts and manufacturers having expressed the belief that it will solve the problem of "felting" as effectively as. and more cheaply than an.v of the English processes, states the "Sydney Morning Herald." With a view to putting it to more extensive commercial tests, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has arranged with Holeproof. Limited, to carry out a seies of trials at their factory in Melbourne. In announcing this arrangement, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research stated that the semiindustrial scale tests with small quantities of men's socks al a time had already led to the belief that the process was essentially sound for woollen goods. "It is now felt," the council said, "that any problems which remain can best be revealed by conducting a full scale trial, and that such a trial will provide a satisfactory basis for the estimation of costs."

In co-operation with Messrs Vicars and Company, Sydney, the council s officers also are developing methods for the treatment of tops. Recently trial batches of several hundred pounds were put through a pilot plant, and steps arc being taken to ascertain whether the product is regarded as satisfactory by certain manufacturers of knitted goods. Should both those large-scale tests prove satisfactory, the council will be in a position to make available sufficient data to enable other manufacture! s to assess the value of the process for their purposes.