Once the Zwartbles wool has been rinsed twice it is then dried in the drying room until it is completely dry. It is brought out in bags and placed on the floor in front of the teasing machine. I call it the fluffing machine as it fluffs wool up to twice its size & makes it so soft.
Once the dry wool is piled up in a square it is sprinkled with an emulsion of water and natural sheep oil, lanolin, to return a bit of moister to the fibre.
The Teasing Machine is started up, her belts start to turn in their figure of eight as wheels, gears & cogs clink together to start the teasing of the wool.
Wool is then loaded by the armful onto wooden slatted feed sheet, which rolls into the machine, feeding the wool into the teaser.
As the wool is fed into the Teasing machine it is then blown out the far end into a huge fluffy pile of wool so soft and light with twice the volume that went into the feed end.
Due to the age of these machines there is a regular oiling routine to keep everything running smoothly.
Once all the wool has been teased it must be again collected by hand into big wool sacks which are hanging from ceiling hooks.
Once the sack is filled with the freshly teased wool it is dragged through narrow corridors of the mill to the basement room where the huge carding machine lies in wait for the next step in the wools process to become yarn for weaving and knitting.
