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Key Highlights
- A conventional size recipe is assembled at the mill.
- Nobody sets out to run an inconsistent size box.
- A compound grade arrives already cooked to a fixed recipe.
- Most grades in the range desize enzymatically, exactly as a conventional recipe does.
- Grade selection comes from count, fibre and loom type, not from a preference.
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A conventional size recipe is assembled at the mill. Starch
from one supplier, a binder from another, a lubricant on top, weighed by whoever
is on shift that morning. Every one of those is a variable, and every variable
is somewhere the beam can go wrong.
The problem with blending on site
Nobody sets out to run an inconsistent size box. It happens
because a recipe with four components has four chances to drift. Supplier
batches differ. Scales read differently. A shift changes and the cook time moves
by three minutes. None of that shows up as a fault on a report. It shows up as
warp breaks on the loom two days later, by which point the cause is four steps
back and nobody is looking there.
Where the variance actually comes from
- Starch batches vary in viscosity even within a single supplier’s spec
- Binder and lubricant are dosed by eye more often than anyone admits
- Cook time and temperature drift between shifts
- Nothing in that chain is measured against the previous beam
What a compound grade changes
A compound grade arrives already cooked to a fixed recipe.
The mill weighs one product. Viscosity and film behaviour sit where they were
the last time the beam ran, because the recipe was fixed before the drum left
the plant rather than assembled on the floor.
The saving is not in the chemistry. It is in
removing three places where the recipe could have been wrong.
Desizing and the effluent plant
Most grades in the range desize enzymatically, exactly as a
conventional recipe does. The water soluble grade does not: the fabric washes
off in hot water at 80 to 90 degrees, which removes the enzyme step and the cost
that goes with it at the effluent plant.
Choosing a grade
Grade selection comes from count, fibre and loom type, not
from a preference. Coarse cotton counts on a denim warp are a different problem
to Ne 80 sheeting on a high-speed air-jet, and the grades are built accordingly.
The starting dosage our technical team recommends is a starting point, adjusted
against the trial on your own warp.
What the trial should measure
| Measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Warp breaks per 100,000 picks | The only number the loom actually cares about |
| Desizing result | Tells you whether the film came off cleanly |
| Size pick-up | Easy to move, and says very little on its own |
What to trial first
Run the compound against your current recipe on the same
article, same loom, same shift pattern. Compare warp breaks per hundred thousand
picks and the desizing result, not the size pick-up figure on its own. Pick-up
is easy to move and tells you very little by itself.
