#the fiber mill

[samimarkart]

Follow The Leader (Ant Spiral)

block printed denim, cotton batting, thread, and gifted fabric backing

thinking about natural phenomena, repetition from a single block carving, adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, and dreams from years back where my blankets turned into swarms of insects

[crime-wives]

no one is doing it like regina mills. she’s a murderer. she’s a loving mother. she’s an evil queen. she’s the mayor of a small town in maine. she’s in love with her son’s other mother. she has so many mommy issues. she craves love but has no idea how to receive or reciprocate it. she has magic. she’s a bisexual bitch. her response to the slightest provocation is a fireball. she rips out hearts. she’s the definition of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. she’s hell bent on revenge. she’s lonely and sad and feels too much all at once. she’s everything to me.

[bwwhitney]

[yeetbean]

spent some time drawing :3 ive had this idea in my head that in the game i will one day make™ theres a bar on the beach shaped like a giant lobster (the bar is inside the lobster, with barstools in the sand outside) and now it exists outside my head! woohoo! sketch drawn!

its very important for you to know that its made of metal and the head used to move and its now defunct and unsafe, and the only way to enter is under the tail which is super heavy and unwieldy. tourists love it though so they cant just close it down.

also its now not a lobster! its a mantis shrimp! tourists still call it the lobster much to the ire of some nerd. its punch could totally kill someone which is part of why its defunct! anyways im totally in love w this design and with pixel art and just. making art in general! woohoo! win for riley! did art!

[mischief-tea]

I may habv made. a mistake

[subtextsays]

Wool is one of those things where the raw product is comparatively cheap. Processing wool to yarn, however, takes specialized equipment that is just plain rare in a lot of places. In the US there are small mills that cater to small farms/individuals, but the backlog is generally 6+ mos out; and one of the best known ones (Zeilinger) just shut down after 100+ years of business.

Australia, New Zealand, and China are the big wool producers and processors atm. Shipping is an issue, especially with raw wool, because unwanted lanolin/dirt makes up a decent percentage of total weight. The wool that's desirable for commercial use has to meet certain specifications too, color and micron count particularly, and be available in large quantities.

So there's farmers in some areas where the processing capacity just isn't there, who probably can't sell their fleeces for enough to cover shearing costs. And for a lot of applications there are cheaper synthetic fibers.

(All this reminds me of the massive roll of wool tweed I bought in an antique store of all places. I was planning to overdye it and make small things, but I could do that with suit remnants just as easily. Maybe I should sell the tweed by the yard.)

[reasonsforhope]

"Businesses like to talk about the concept of a closed loop or circular economy, but often they’re trying to close small loops. Releaf Paper takes dead leaves from city trees and turns them into paper for bags, office supplies, and more—which is to say they are striving to close one heck of a big loop.

How big? Six billion trees are cut down every year for paper products according to the WWF, producing everything from toilet paper to Amazon boxes to the latest best-selling novels. Meanwhile, the average city produces 8,000 metric tons of leaves every year which clog gutters and sewers, and have to be collected, composted, burned, or dumped in landfills.

In other words, huge supply and huge demand, but Releaf Paper is making cracking progress. They already produce 3 million paper carrier bags per year from 5,000 metric tons of leaves from their headquarters in Paris.

Joining forces with landscapers in sites across Europe, thousands of tonnes of leaves arrive at their facility where a low-water, zero-sulfur/chlorine production process sees the company create paper with much smaller water and carbon footprints...

“In a city, it’s a green waste that should be collected. Really, it’s a good solution because we are keeping the balance—we get fiber for making paper and return lignin as a semi-fertilizer for the cities to fertilize the gardens or the trees. So it’s like a win-win model,” [Valentyn] Frechka, co-founder and CTO of Releaf Paper, told Euronews.

Releaf is already selling products to LVMH, BNP Paribas, Logitech, Samsung, and various other big companies. In the coming years, Frechka and Sobolenka also plan to further increase their production capacity by opening more plants in other countries. If the process is cost-efficient, there’s no reason there shouldn’t be a paper mill of this kind in every city.

“We want to expand this idea all around the world. At the end, our vision is that the technology of making paper from fallen leaves should be accessible on all continents,” Sobolenka notes, according to ZME Science."

-via Good News Network, August 15, 2024

[parasonmachinery]

In the need for sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic tableware, bagasse plates have emerged as a promising solution. Bagasse, the fibrous residue left after extracting sugarcane juice, serves as the raw material for manufacturing biodegradable and compostable plates, bowls, and cups. This blog explores the process of making bagasse tableware and highlights the functions and features of various bagasse plate-making machines.

Raw Material For Sugarcane Bagasse Plate Making

Molded Fiber pulp sheets are used as the essential raw material for the production of disposable plates, and they are easily available in the market at highly affordable prices.

The transformation of waste sugarcane bagasse into clear and readily usable Molded Fiber (Disposable) pulp sheets entails undergoing a series of mechanical and chemical stock preparation processes, which closely resemble those employed in the paper manufacturing industry.

The cost of establishing a stock preparation system for Molded Fiber Pulp Sheets is twice as high as that of a Disposable Tableware production line. However, these bagasse pulp sheets are readily accessible in the market at a convenient price, which is why manufacturers of bagasse tableware prefer to utilize them.

Machinery and Systems Required for Disposable Tableware Manufacturing

The manufacturing process of disposable tableware, utilizing sugarcane bagasse as the raw material, requires the integration of numerous auxiliary systems and specialized machinery.

[bluepoodle7]

#PoopLikeAChampionUltraFiberCereal #FiberCereal #FiberMixedCerealReview #GeneralMills #CinnamonToastCrunch #GeneralMillsCinnamonToastCrunchChocolateChurrosCereal #ChurroShapedCereal #CerealReview

I tried the mixed the Poop like a Champion Cereal With the General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch Chocolate Churros Cereal dry and it was okay.

The chocolate churros cereal tasted wheat like but had a light chocolate cinnamon taste. The Poop like a champion cereal tasted neutral wheat tasting. This mix dry was lightly sweet to me.

I tried this with the Kroger Chocolate almond milk and it was pretty good.

The chocolate churros cereal gave it a chocolate cinnamon sweet taste that overpowered the Poop like a champion cereal and gave the chocolate almondmilk a more sweet cinnamon chocolate taste. This cereal mix stayed crunchy in milk. This was sweet but not overly sweet to me.

I would eat this mix again.

[asiajute]

Bangladesh Jute Spinners Association

The Bangladesh Jute Spinners Association (BJSA) is a trade organization of jute spinning mills in Bangladesh. It was established in 1979 with the objective of promoting and protecting the interests of the jute spinning industry in the country. The BJSA represents the interests of its member mills in various forums and works to address their concerns and issues related to the jute spinning…

[advancechemicals]

Retention and Drainage Program in the Paper Industry: Advance Chemicals’ Solution

In the paper industry, the retention and drainage program is a critical aspect of the papermaking process. The goal is to maximize the retention of fibers and fillers, minimize the amount of fines and debris, and improve the drainage rate of the paper machine. This results in a higher quality paper with improved strength, brightness, and overall appearance.

Advance Chemicals is a leading provider of retention and drainage solutions for the paper industry. The company offers a comprehensive program designed to improve the efficiency of the papermaking process and produce high-quality paper.

The retention and drainage program by Advance Chemicals is based on a combination of advanced chemical technologies, process optimization, and expert application support. The program includes a range of products specifically designed for the paper industry, including retention aids, drainage aids, and coagulants.

Retention aids are chemicals that are added to the papermaking process to increase the retention of fibers and fillers. They help to prevent fines and debris from escaping the paper machine and promote the formation of a uniform sheet. Drainage aids are added to the process to improve the flow of water and reduce the formation of debris, resulting in a faster drainage rate and a cleaner sheet.

Coagulants are used to control the charge of the fibers and fillers in the papermaking process. They help to prevent the formation of flocs and promote a uniform sheet. The coagulants used in the retention and drainage program by Advance Chemicals are carefully selected to minimize any negative impact on the papermaking process and produce a high-quality product.

In addition to the chemical products, Advance Chemicals also provides expert application support. The company’s experienced technicians work with papermakers to optimize the process, providing advice on product selection, dosages, and application methods. This ensures that the retention and drainage program is tailored to the specific needs of each customer and produces the best results.

In conclusion, the retention and drainage program by Advance Chemicals is a comprehensive solution designed to improve the efficiency of the papermaking process and produce high-quality paper. The program combines advanced chemical technologies, process optimization, and expert application support to deliver the best results for papermakers.

Get in touch with our experts www.advancechemicals.in 

[bwwhitney]

[perikrone]

The depth of the global textile supply chain that you get into as you get into increasingly obscure fiber arts is so wild.

You can start with knitting, or crochet, and there are *so* many choices for yarn and materials. Indie dyers with unique colorways, weird fibers from heritage breeds, and patterns for hundreds of lifetimes worth of hobby. You can even dive into spinning! Buy weird fiber from hobbyists and conservationists around the world, and spin things that you can't easily get otherwise.. Just those skills are enough to take a lifetime to hone.

But if you go far enough down the rabbit-hole, you're suddenly googling for how to compare thread weights between crochet thread numbers and weaving numbers, and is flax graded differently than cotton? Oh, I can get 20/2 and 60/2 silk all day long, but suddenly if I need 30/2 silk there are just a handful of results and wow I'll never be able to buy this again, is this a random mill in Turkey just selling cone ends??? And before you know it you have a note file with 10,000 Etsy links and Google translated half functioning corporate websites and you're trying to figure out if it's worth it to just see if you can import from this tiny store in Germany that seems to have a reliable source of *close enough* fiber for what you're going for, and why are you even so into *tablet weaving* of all things, why can't we just be knitting endless socks or something like that???

Love it, wouldn't trade it for the world.

[c1qfxugcgy0]

adventures in QA

(previous post in this series)

My shop in Advanced Midbody - Carbon Wing (AMCW) at Large Aircraft Manufacturer (LAM) is at the very end of the composite fabrication building. Hundreds of people carefully lay up a hundred foot long slab of carbon fiber, cure it, paint it, and then we totally fuck it up with out of spec holes, scrapes, primer damage, etc. The people who write up our many defects are from the Quality Assurance (QA) department.

Every single screw and rivet on a LAM aircraft can be traced back to the mechanic who installed it. Back when even everything was done in pen and pencil, it was joked that the paper used to produce an aircraft outweighed the plane itself. Now that everything is computer-based, of course, the amount of paperwork is free to grow without limit.

(Haunting the factory is endless media coverage of an emergency exit door plug popping out of an Advanced Smallbody - Upengine (ASU) plane during a routine flight a few months ago. Unlike that airframe's notorious problems with MCAS, this was a straightforward paperwork screwup by a line worker: the bolts were supposed to be tightened, and they weren't.

As a result the higher ups have visited hideous tribulations on non-salaried workers. Endless webinars, structured trainings. Here at the Widebody plant we have received a steady flow of refugees from the Narrowbody factory, hair-raising tales of receiving one hundred percent supervision from the moment they clock in to the second they clock out from FAA inspectors who can recommend actual jail time for any lapse in judgement.)

A single hydraulic bracket Installation Plan (IP) is around four brackets. The team leads generally assign two bracket IPs per mechanic, since each bracket set is something like a foot apart, and while working on the plane is bad enough it's much worse to have another mechanic in your lap.

Let me list the order of operations:

One: Find where you're supposed to install these brackets. This is harder than you might think.

Firstly, it's a hundred foot long plank of carbon fiber composite, with longitudinal stringers bonded to it to add stiffness. The stringers are pilot drilled in the trim and drill center, a truly Brobdingnagian CNC mill that trims off the composite flash at the edges and locates and drills part holes for us. But there's a lot of holes, so you must carefully find your set.

A minor difficulty is that the engineering drawings are laid out with the leading edge pointing up, while the wing panels in our cells hang from the trailing edge. Not so bad, you just rotate the paper 180 when orienteering, then rotate it back up to read the printed labels.

A major difficulty is that the drawings are from the perspective from the outside of the panel. But we work on the inside of the wing (obviously, that's where all the parts are installed) so we also flip the drawings and squint through the back of the paper, to make things line up.

Large Aircraft Manufacturer has a market cap of US$110 billion, and we're walking around the wing jig with sheets of paper rotated 180 and flipped turnways trying to find where to put brackets.

Oh well, we're paid by the hour.

Two: Match drill the aluminum brackets to the carbon fiber composite stringer. I can devote an entire post to the subtleties of drilling carbon fiber, but I can already tell that this post is going to be a miserable slog, so I will merrily skip over this step.

Three: Vacuum up all the carbon dust and aluminum swarf created during this process. This step is not optional, as your team lead will remind you, his screaming mouth clouding your safety glasses with spittle at a distance of four inches. LAM is very serious about FOD. Every jet airliner you've ever ridden in is a wet wing design-- each interstitial space is filled with Jet A. There is no fuel bladder or liner-- the fuel washes right over plane structure and wing hardware. Any dirt we leave behind will merrily float into the fuel and be sucked right into the engines, where it can cause millions in damage. No place for metal shavings!

If you are nervous about flying, avoid considering that all the hydraulic lines and engine control cables dip into a lake of a kerosene on their way from the flight deck to the important machines they command. Especially do not consider that we're paid about as much per hour as a McDonalds fry cook to install flight-critical aviation components.

Four: Neatly lay out your brackets on your cart, fight for a position at a Shared Production Workstation (SPW) (of which we have a total of four (4) for a crew of thirty (30) mechanics) and mark your IP for QA inspection as Ready To Apply Seal.

Four: Twiddle your thumbs. Similarly, we have three QA people for thirty mechanics. This is not enough QA people, as I will make enormously clear in the following steps.

Five: Continue waiting. Remember, you must not do anything until a QA person shows up and checks the box. Skipping a QA step is a “process failure” and a disciplinary offense. From the outside, you can observe the numerous QA whistleblowers and say “golly, why would a mechanic ever cut a corner and ignore QA?” Well...

Six: QA shows up. Theoretically, they could choose to pick up the mahrmax you prepared for them and gauge every single hole you've drilled. But since we're three hours into the shift and they're already twenty jobs behind, they just flick their flashlight across the panel and say “looks good" and then sprint away. Can't imagine why our planes keep falling out of the sky.

Seven: Apply the seal to the bracket. P/S 890 is a thick dark gray goop that adheres well to aluminum, carbon fiber, fabric, hair and skin. Once cured, it is completely immune to any chemical attack short of piranha solution, so if you get any on yourself you had better notice quick, otherwise it'll be with you as long as the layer of epidermis it's bonded to. LAM employees who work with fuel tank sealant very quickly get out of the habit of running their hands through their hair.

Eight: Now you wait again. Ha ha, you dumb asshole, you thought you were done with QA? No no, now you put up the job for QA inspection of how well you put the seal on the bracket. Twiddle your thumbs, but now with some urgency. The minute you took the bottle of seal out of the freezer, you started the clock on its "squeeze-out life." For this type of seal, on this job, it's 120 minutes. If QA doesn't get to you before that time expires, you remove your ticket, wipe off the seal, take another bottle out the freezer, and apply a fresh layer.

Nine: Optimistically, QA shows up in time and signs off on the seal. Well, you're 100 minutes into your 120 minute timer. Quickly, you slap the brackets onto the stringer, air hammer the sleeve bolts into position, thread nuts onto the bolts, then torque them down. Shove through the crowd and mark your IP "ready to inspect squeeze out"

Ten: Let out a long breath and relax. All the time sensitive parts are over. The criteria here is "visible and continuous" squeeze out all along the perimeter of the bracket and the fasteners. It is hard to screw this up, just glop on a wild excess of seal before installing it. If you do fail squeezeout, though, the only remedy is to take everything off, throw away the single-use distorted thread locknuts, clean everything up and try again tomorrow.

Eleven: QA approved squeeze out? Break's over, now we're in a hurry again. By now there's probably only an hour or two left in the shift, and your job now is to clean off all that squeeze out. Here's where you curse your past self for glopping on too much seal. You want to get it off ASAP because if you leave it alone or if it's too late in the shift and your manager does feel like approving overtime it'll cure to a rock hard condition overnight and you'll go through hell chipping it off the next day. You'll go through a hundred or so qtips soaked in MPK cleaning up the bracket and every surface of the panel within three feet.

Twelve: Put it up for final inspection. Put away all your tools. (The large communal toolboxes are lined with kaizen foam precisely cut out to hold each individual tool, which makes it obvious if any tool is missing. When you take a tool out, you stick a tool chit with your name and LAMID printed on it in its place. Lose a tool? Stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye, pal, because the default assumption is that a lost screwdriver is lurking in a hollow "hat" stringer, waiting to float out and damage some critical component years after the airplane is delivered.)

One tool you'll leave on your cart, however, is the pin protrusion gage. There is a minimum amount of thread that must poke outside of the permanent straight shank fastener's (Hi-Lok) nut, to indicate that the nut is fully engaged. That makes sense. But there's also a maximum protrusion. Why?

Well, it's an airplane. Ounces make pounds. An extra quarter inch of stickout across a thousand fasteners across a 30 year service life means tons of additional fuel burnt. So you can't use a fastener that's too long, because it adds weight.

On aluminum parts, it's hard to mess up. But any given composite part is laid up from many layers of carbon fiber tape. The engineers seemed to have assumed that dimensional variation would be normally distributed. But, unfortunately, we buy miles of carbon fiber at a time, and the size only very gradually changes between lots. When entire batches are several microns oversize, and you're laying up parts from fifty plies and an inch thick, you can have considerable variation of thickness on any given structural component. So you had better hope you had test fit all of your fasteners ahead of time, or else you'll be real sorry!

And, if you're really lucky, QA will show up five minutes before end of shift, pronounce everything within tolerance, then fuck off.

And that's how it takes eight hours to install eight brackets.

[uispeccoll]

#MiniatureMonday

Fruity Jubilee: A Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Pocket Book

In the mood for a tasty little treat? Try a recipe from Fruity Jubilee, an accordion folded book of fruit themed foods. Each page has a recipe card tucked into it, and a matching fruity scratch ‘n’ sniff sticker opposite. Recipes include fresh strawberry ice cream, baked apple marzipan, banana whip, lemon fritters, and more.

The book was designed and printed by artist Pat Baldwin at Pequeño Press on Fabriano and handmade banana fiber papers and bound at Waterleaf Mill & Bindery in Bisbee, Arizona. This is edition 39 of 50.

Smith Miniatures Collection N7433.4.B3455 F78 1995

---Anne M.