How we get wood fibres from sheep?

The processing of fibres into wool involves the following steps:

Step I: Shearing: - At first hair are removed using shearing machine
Step II: scouring : - Hair is washed in tanks to remove grease, dust and dirt. This process is
called scouring.
Step III: After scouring, sorting of hair is done on the basic of different textures
Step IV: The small fluffy fibres, called burrs, are picked out from the hair
Step V: The fibres then dyed in various colours, according to choice
Step VI: The coloured fibres are straightened, combed and rolled into yarn
3.1 WOOL Wool comes from sheep, goat, yak and some other animals. These wool-
yielding animals bear hair on their body. Do you know why these animals have a
thick coat of hair? Hair trap a lot of air. Air is a poor conductor of heat, as you
would learn in Chapter 4. So, hair keeps these animals warm. Wool is derived
from these hairy fibres.
Animals that yield wool Several breeds of sheep are found in different parts of our
country (Table 3.1). However, the fleece of sheep is not theonly source of wool, though
wool commonly available in the market is sheep wool (Fig. 3.1). Yak (Fig. 3.2) wool is
common in Tibet and Ladakh. Angora wool is obtained from angora goats, (Fig. 3.3)
found in hilly regions such as Jammu and Kashmir. Wool is also obtained from goat
hair (Fig. 3.4). The under fur of Kashmiri goat is soft. It is woven into fine shawls called
Pashmina shawls. The fur (hair) on the body of camels is also used as wool (Fig. 3.5).
Llama and Alpaca, found in South America, also yield wool (Fig. 3.6 and 3.7).
Production[edit]
Global wool production is approximately 1.3 million tonnes per year, of which 60% goes into
apparel. Australia is the leading producer of wool which is mostly from Merino [Link] Zealand is
the second-largest producer of wool, and the largest producer of crossbred wool. China is the third-
largest producer of wool. Breeds suchas Lincoln, Romney,Tukidale, Drysdale and Elliotdale produce
coarser fibers, and wool from these sheep is usually used for making carpets.
In the United States, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado have large commercial sheep flocks and
their mainstay is the Rambouillet (or French Merino). There is also a thriving home-flock contingent
of small-scale farmers who raise small hobby flocks of specialty sheep for the hand spinning market.
These small-scale farmers offer a wide selection of fleece. Global woolclip (total amount of wool
shorn) 2004/2005
[28

History -Then around 10,000 BC people in West Asia began to domesticatesheep (tame
them) and take care of them, so there would always be plenty of meat around. At this
point they began to use the milk from the sheep also, either drinking it fresh or making
it into cheese. When they had killed a sheep, of course they would also make the skin
intoleather, and maybe leave the hair on to make it warmer, like a fur coat. But still there
was no wool as we know it today.

Man shearing a sheep, about 1550 AD (Brueghel)
Sometime not too much later people also began to make clothes, instead of just wearing
furs. Since they had sheepskins around, one of the fibers they used was sheep hair. They
noticed that although none of the sheep hair was really any good for spinning, because it
was too thick and brittle, some of the hair from the stomach, the underside of the sheep,
was better than the rest. And people began breeding the sheep that had the most good
hair together, trying to get some hair you could spin. It took thousands of years, many
many generations of sheep, but by about 5000 BC, people could begin to spin wool.

Sheep being sheared for their wool on the Isle of Skye, Scotland
Wool has a lot of advantages over vegetable fibers. It is easier to prepare it for spinning:
you just cut it off the sheep and comb it out. It is easier to spin than cotton orflax, and
quicker. It is warmer (that's why sweaters are made of wool, and sometimes socks, and
blankets) (though this is also a disadvantage in very warm climates like Egypt). The
lanolin on the wool makes it shed water, so it is a good fiber to wear if you will be out in
the rain (as shepherds often are). And you can dye it more easily than flax, so you can
have clothes in pretty colors and patterns.
Indian Wool Industry
The woollen industry in the country is small in size and widely scattred. It is basically located in the
States of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, U.P.,Maharashtra and Gujarat. 40%, of the woollen units are
located in Punjab, 27% in Haryana, 10% in Rajasthan, while the rest of the States account for the
remaining 23 % of the units. A. few of the larger units are located
inMaharashtra, Punjab, U.P.,Gujarat and West Bengal.








Pressure flaking[edit]


An example of pressure flaking
Pressure flaking is a method of trimming the edge of a stone tool by removing small lithic flakes by
pressing on the stone with a sharp instrument rather than striking it with a percussor. This method,
which often uses punches made from bone or antler tines (or, among modern hobbyists, copper
punches or even nails), provides a greater means of controlling the direction and quantity of the
applied force than when using even the most careful percussive flaking. Copper retoucheurs to
facilitate this process were widely employed in the Early Bronze Age and may therefore be
associated with Beaker Culture in northwestern Europe.
Usually, the objective piece is held clasped in the flintknapper's hand, with a durable piece of fabric
or leather protecting the flintknapper's palm from the sharpness of the flakes removed. The tip of the
flaking tool is placed against the edge of the stone tool and pressed hard, removing a small linear
or lunate flake from the opposite side. The process also involves frequent preparation of the edge to
form better platforms for pressing off flakes. This is usually accomplished with abraiders made from
a coarse-grained stone such as basalt or quartzite. Great care must be taken during pressure flaking
so that perverse fractures that break the entire tool do not occur. Occasionally,outrepasse breaks
occur when the force propagates across and through the tool in such a way that the entire opposite
margin is removed.
[6]

The use of pressure flaking facilitated the early production of sharper and more finely detailed tools.
Pressure flaking also gave toolmakers the ability to create notches where the objective piece could
be bound more securely to the shaft of the weapon or tool and increasing the object's utility.
An archaeological discovery in 2010 in Blombos Cave, South Africa, places the use of pressure
flaking by early humans to make stone tools back to 73,000 BCE, 55,000 years earlier than
previously accepted. The previously accepted date, "no more than 20,000 years ago",
[7]
was based
upon the earliest evidence previously available, which derived from findings of the Upper
Paleolithic Solutrean culture in France and Spain.
[8]