And oldie but still goody from November 2009 issue of The Courier Knit Notes about the Chargeurs Wool processing plant in Jamestown, SC.

On September 23, I had the good fortune to be able to tour the last processor of combed wool top that is left in the United States. French owned Chargeurs is located in Jamestown, South Carolina. Montana and Wyoming might be known for their sheep production but South Carolina certainly isn’t. More along the lines of cotton, soy beans and tobacco so how did a wool processing plant end up down there?

The facility was built in 1954 when their customers were close by and the Carolinas were known for their abundance of textile mills. Chargeurs borders the Santee River where they get their water supply because processing wool takes about 1 gallon of water per pound of wool. The facility even has their own water plant for the enormous amounts it takes. Situated on 550 acres and down a winding drive, I was surprised to find that when I stepped out of the car, that I didn’t catch the distinctive aroma of sheep. Even when I went into the office, there was no sheepy smell. I commented on this to the secretary who laughed and said that the delivery drivers complained about the smell. I guess I was expecting to greeted by the aroma of freshly shorn sheep. Diego Paulier, the Commercial Manager of the plant gave us the grand tour and the whole time I was on tilt. To be a hand spinner of some 35 years or so and having dealt in wool and the processing thereof I was in seventh heaven. When I think of having to wash one fleece and preparing it for spinning and the work that goes into that, and then see the enormity of their facility was just mind boggling! First we went to where the greasy wool comes it. Due to the whole world economy being down the facility is not running at capacity and is only getting in about 3 tractor trailer loads a day or about 120,000 pounds. When running to full capacity, they gear up to about 320,000 pounds a day of raw, greasy wool. They process mostly domestic clip and work with producers such as Burlington Mills, and others who use their finished product in the production of fabric and yarns. Some of their greasy wool is imported from Australia. Mr. Paulier, who has been at the plant for some five years, informed us that the Australian Merino wool sets the world standard that everyone else is judged against. The Australians have bred the Merino to produce the whitest, finest fleece without dark hairs showing up unexpectedly now and again. Chargeurs only runs white wool, in the commercial market, black wool has no real value because it can’t be dyed. 

The first part of the process from greasy wool to combed top is the bale breaker. Wool is trucked in wrapped in 1200 pound bales or smaller 350 pound pouches. The bales are fork lifted to the bale breaker and then a swinging hoist lifts them onto a conveyer belt and the wrapping is stripped away and the baler wire cut. From the Bale Breaker the wool moved along to a giant mixer about the size of 2-3 cement truck mixers where 7,000 to 8,000 pounds of the different wools were blended to the customers specifications. When they were blended enough, the cylinder rotated in the opposite direction and the blended wool comes tumbling out into yet another conveyor belt. It made its way through an opener or picker where the fibers were separated and then into the wool bath. This was a series of 8 different sets of gigantic bowls where the wool was washed and cleaned. At each step of the operation the wool gets cleaner and there is less debris and dirt in it. The wool bath removes the grease which is then extracted from the water by several large centrifuges. The wool grease is stored in about 200-300 gallon plastic containers to await shipment to other facilities who will further process and refine it for lubricants, coatings and use in the cosmetic industries. At this stage it is still wool grease. Lanolin, although contained in the wool grease only becomes lanolin after further processing. I learned something new there! The bath system is one of the most crucial components because it can supply the whole facility when it is running to capacity.   If that breaks down, the whole system comes to a halt so needless to say, it is maintained with great regularity.

After going through the bath, the wool is then air dried on large rotating cylinders, then it is blown into a large storage bin to await further processing. From the storage bin of cleaned wool, it is vacuumed out into the production area to be run through the carders. I was surprised at just how slow the carders were. There were 12 individual carding machines, the carders themselves were roughly 48 inches wide, and the wool slowly fed onto a small roller with protruding tines, much like giant round hair brushes. From this smaller roller, it passed through a series of more tined rollers to be gathered off at the other end in a continuous cobweb like sheet of wool, where it was fed into a narrow trough where it was folded over onto itself. The wool that comes out of the carder is called sliver. It is light and fluffy and oh so soft! At
 this stage, more dirt and debris has been removed and it is very clean, although you can still spot small pieces here and there in it. The clean, continuous wool sliver is coiled into very large barrels awaiting the combing process. Sliver is cleaned wool but it still has tiny specks and noils. Combing further aligns the wool fibers parallel to each other and combs out all of the less desirable short pieces or noils. These noils are then sold to felt or yarn producers. Silk will also produce noils which when spun, produces a yarn with a lovely pebbly texture. If you have ever had a sweater to produce pills or get pilly, this is the short fibers working loose and tangling on each other and the sweater. Combed wool has a lesser tendency to do this than non-combed wool. After the carders comes the combs. The sliver is passed through a series of tiny combs that get the rest of the noils and specks out and turn the sliver into a combed top. These are then wound into 30 pound bobbins. At this stage the wool bobbins are ready to be baled up as finished product to await shipping to customers all over the world. Greasy wool in to finished top out is about a 24 hour process.

During the combing and carding stages, samples are randomly pulled to be tested for micron count, imperfections, whiteness, yellowness and humidity. The plant is run in a controlled climate to reduce static electricity when processing the wool and to insure the wool stays at a relative constant humidity. Wool is hydrophilic meaning it loves water and will absorb water if left in a high humidity environment.

Chargeurs has about a 33% market share of the domestic wool clip. Mr. Paulier, who is also a wool buyer, purchases wool from mostly the western states, as they are the biggest producers but some from the Eastern portion of the US as well. Wool will come from cooperatives, which are groups of growers who will pool all of their wool together for a better price, warehouses which are mostly privately owned and some imports. Wool is purchased based on clean weight after factoring in such factors as freight, export duties, cleaning etc. Wool looses about 55% of its weight during processing, so 1000 pounds of greasy wool in would result in about 450 pounds of combed top production. Domestic wools run about 20% less dollar wise than Australian Merino. Generally the finer the wool the higher the price.

There are just so many factors to the wool market and I find it all fascinating. All in all it was a wonderful experience and the folks at Chargeurs were wonderful for taking the time to talk with us and answer my many, many questions. I considered it a major coup when I walked out of the plant toting a 30 pound bobbin of combed top on my shoulders! Ahhhh…….A most Happy Day in my neighborhood!