More washing and processing trials again today: increased water temperature (150 degrees), and more detergent (4x the amount of Power Scour). I also washed a load of the Ramboulet using .4oz of Dawn Blue dishwashing detergent.
The extra amounts of either the Power Scour or the Dawn certainly lifted more dirt out of the wool, and with the Dawn I ran two washes - the second with half the detergent.
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| Water after the first wash with Dawn |
The real difference was in the feel of the wool (both kinds), washing with extra detergent left a little less greasy feel and having a fresher smell. The down side is that all the VM and much of the original matting remains. It was pleasant to see that neither wool type (Coopworth/course, Ramboulet/fine) felted in any way throughout the process.
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| The various batches of wool drying on our screen set up. |
The next step will be to try some different carding/combing combinations to see how much VM that will remove.
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| Coopworth combed top |
The Coopworth is a sitter for combing, with very long locks. There is a fair amount of loss because of the matting, but three times through the combs meant there is negligible VM left.
And the distractions from this task today were: assemble second set of shelves (for the weaving room, moving most of the 'stuff' off my work table to allow me to actually do things on it), and put 5 gallons of beer into a keg and force carbonate it.
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