FLUFF or FUZZ ON SOCKS AFTER PROCESSING

By
YASER RIAZ [Manager Sourcing]
M. YASIN AKHTAR [Sr. Officer knitting]
Fluff vs Dead Cotton
• These are very short fibers in length that are broken from the fiber’s ends
protruding on the yarn body; in results of high friction (between yarn to yarn &
yarn to metallic part of machines) on the machines during knitting or processing
actions. These are not dead cotton but a part of good quality fiber as they dye well
during dyeing process.
• It is an extreme form of immature cotton, having a thin secondary fiber wall;
which can results from disease, pest attack or foreshortened ripening period. Dye
affinity of such fibers are very low and appear as un-dyed or very light shade
tinny spots on the surface of the garment or fabric.

Reasons
There are several reasons why fluff from a yarn structure interferes with the different
processes of socks manufacturing, but the main reason for fluff formation is yarn
hairiness
In knitting it is pronounced by abrasion / friction that occurs where the moving yarn
passes over machine parts or yarn to yarn friction during knitting.
In processing loose fibers are removed or pulled from the socks surface and mixed with
liquor which due to improper wash off it piles on the socks surface after processing.
Main possibilities of fluff formation and accumulation are as fellow…
 Yarn Hairiness
 Fluff formation in knitting
 Processing variables

Yarn Hairiness
 Yarn hairiness could be one of the key factors in occurrence of this fault. It
depends on the staple length of the fibers being used in that yarn. This is why ring
spun yarn has less hairiness as compared to open end yarn and with in ring spun
yarn finer counts have less hairiness in comparison to coarser ones.
Based on these facts we decided to analyze historical trend of yarn hairiness in trouble
brands of JK and Maxima.

Results & Discussions

The graph shows that the hairiness factor is
 Constant in Maxima form last 3 months
 While it is downward in JK in the same period.

This shows that yarn is not the real cause of this sudden surge in fluff formation.

Fluff formation in knitting

Dry yarn have higher coefficient of friction as compared to the moist one. It mean when
dry yarn abraded by machine parts create more fluff. Factor increasing this abrasion
include

 Improper yarn tension

 Improper waxing
 Damaged machine components in yarn path.

Ideally
yarn tension should be as low as possible for smooth knitting and safe processing
Knitting hall atmosphere should be maintained as below
Relative humidity 65%
Temperature 21 °C

Dyeing variables

Factors contributing in dyeing

 Liquor Ratio
 Dyeing time
 Improper wash off

This problem mainly observed in bleaching in HD I and black, red in HD II regardless of

the yarn use.

This shows that problem is in recipes having high process time and temperature. For
further verification we request a few trials from processing section.

Process socks having face side out.

Recipe analysis of problem color.
Increase No. of washes or continuous rinsing.