mailed out the materials ahead of time so you could have time to read
through and get familiar with the terms and processes and the test. Excellent idea!
The book contained great material, but was "pulled together" from
various other programs. It contained a few pages on the various levels
of classers, many loose pages on shearing setup for efficiency, the
various Classes used by large operations, and misc. handouts designed
for growers on how to skirt to get the best commercial price for a large
amount of wool. The most interesting section (for me) was on "Wool
biology", a section obviously out of a much larger sheep manual as the
pages were in the 1100's. It discussed wool follicle types, when the
follicles developed in utero and when they stopped developing. There was
info on nutrition, fiber types, fiber make-up, what creates crimp, fiber
scales and much more. My view of "Britch" changed a bit after reading
about official examples of britch. Britch is simply a much coarser
wool than the rest of the fleece, that typically grows on the rear legs.
What I thought was britch, was really "hair" and I have some more
examples of that now.
There were six of us, 5 women, 1 man. The first day was all lecture with
video and slides. At the end we got to make a sample board with various
micron count wools from 16 to 36. 16 is finest example we had and 36 is coarsest. I
couldn't even feel a 16 micron fiber rolling it between my fingers! Bob
indicated that the human eye could only distinguish a difference greater
than 3 microns. So it's critical that a commercial grower have their
wool tested to get the best prices. And Bob says that if a fiber has 2
ends to it, it has some commercial value, even kemp (for Harris tweed
fabric). He showed us example fabric out-takes that had contaminants in
them, such as poly plastic twine, jute fibers, discolored wool, black
fibers, and vegetation, etc. That is a huge problem for mills and the
ASI continues to hound growers to watch out for the problems and prevent
or skirt them out.
The second day was working at the Maryland Wool pool taking in the bags
of fleece from growers and learning how to actually class the wool. "Classing" is "grouping like wool together according to the marketing
goal". If you had used all the possible grades you'd have nearly 50
different piles of wool. But we didn't, we had 5. The MD pool already
had a buyer, a mill who wanted their wool and specified which grades
they wanted (a good match-up to the bulk of the wool brought in by the
growers.)
The mill knew from experience what the bulk of that pool was likely to
be. The 6 groups were: Meat White Fine and long, Meat White Medium
and long, White Coarse and long, Meat "black face" and long, Meat Short. Black Face is wool from a sheep that is likely to have a few black or non-white fibers in it.
Short ended up being anything that had second cuts, a break in it or was
junky. If people brought in colored wool we suggested they take it home
and sell it to handspinners or dump it. The mill didn't have much call
for it. Oddly enough, the Asian market for wool is strictly white even
when you think it wouldn't matter. In a blanket, they don't want any
black fibers as they are considered "not clean"!
As each grower brought in their wool, they filled out paperwork
indicating what breed(s) they had, to give us a head's up as to which
group the bulk was likely to be. If Black face, then we just had to
check the length and sort into Long and Short. If Polypay, then we had
to judge whether it was fine enough and long enough to make the premium
for "fine". There were 3 other official classers there to help us with
understanding the difference so we wouldn't downgrade a fleece
needlessly. After it was classed, the bins for that grower were weighed
and he got credit for the weight of each class for his clip, and was
sent home with his empty bags and a receipt. One breeder brought in a few colored bags and one Bonnie bought on the spot, a nice Romney deep dark chocolate, with very slightly light tips.
I almost bought a fine polypay, but didn't want to rob the wool pool of
it's profit (however meager) on a premium wool. It wouldn't be ethical
in a wool pool. If I were classing at a single grower, that would be ok, as the idea is to make the most money for the grower. If it was
colored though, I'd have gone for it.
After weighing, the bins were emptied into 6 piles. We had 2 hydraulic
balers. Each one was going strong from 9 am to about 7 pm. We each took
turns helping out the volunteers sort, weigh, tote 150 lb wool bins and
press wool into the balers. Each final bale could weigh from 200 - 500
lbs. although the goal was 400. The industry uses woven nylon bags
because nylon dyes with the same dyes as wool and the fibers may not be
noticeable.
We also found a few fleeces that would take some abuse and learned to "throw" a fleece as if onto a skirting table. Pretty neat!
Then they went back in the proper piles.
The next day, after the baling was complete, we learned how to hand sample and core sample wool from the bales so the pool could sent it out for testing. Hand sampling involved grabbing a handful of fiber from each bale so it could be tested for length. They test the cores for fineness, color, and yield ( weight of clean wool minus everything else that's not wool) . Depending on the # of bales, we had to core once or up to 10 times in each bale. A corer is a hollow tube with a sharp cutting edge and a T handle on the other end against which you pushed. It's obviously made for 250 lb men to use. You core it by pushing it into the bottom of each bag, laying on its side. I could only shove it by slamming my thighs into my hands on the handles. I have the bruises to show for it, too. After about 10 on the first day, I couldn't do anymore. Then Bob told us that the mills had machines to do it, but the pool wanted to do independent analysis to make sure they got the amount of money they deserved. After coring, each bale was loaded by forklift onto a truck bound for the mill. Each truck could hold 108 400 bales and there were 2 trucks although the 2nd wasn't full. Best guess was about 45,000 lbs.
After the coring was done, we adjourned for lunch and final exam. Bob
said he'd grade the exams on the trip home to Minnesota, but made sure we had any questions answered before finishing the exam.
At the end, I asked him about judging (the main reason I wanted to go to
the school) and he likes to judge in different categories, Meat sheep
being separate from Wool. And a separate category for Handspinning
fleeces. His view is that the wool is an important part of the Sheep
industry and not worthless, in fact it can make or break a meat
business. He judges "Yield" by experience, maintaining that it can't be
taught. You really need to "see" different fleeces that have been
tested to judge fully. When I pressed him on it, he said he looks for:
dirt, debris, grease, suint, and physical size compared to weight. A
larger size/weight ratio for a specific breed category, means less
"non-wool" weight, i.e., more yield. He also would like to see meat sheep judged with at least 1 inch of fleece on them, not slick-shorn, as a carcass includes a pelt.
I learned a lot, spent $100 for the school, $270 for hotel, $75 in
meals, 1000 more miles on the car plus a week of my vacation from day
job. Worth it? Not sure if you can put a $ on learning and on meeting
lots of super-nice, knowledgeable and hardworking people who aren't
afraid of getting dirty. Yes, it was worth it! I plan on helping out
with the Maryland Sheep and wool festival wool show next year. In fact,
I might be able to enter something in the "made from Maryland Wool"
fiber contest next year. As the bales were loaded, sometimes a lock or
two was left on the floor and I snapped them up into a bag. Also some
discards had usable wool on them and could be salvaged, so I have some
of that. Not sure what I can make from 5 ounces of misc. wool, from
different grades, but I'm sure something can, even if it's a novelty. I'll definitely include the "story" of its creation.
Barbara C - eastern Mass
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