Feather yarn is a kind of fancy yarn that has emerged in the domestic market in the past three to four years. Its structure consists of core yarn and trim yarn, and the feathers are arranged in a certain direction. The process mainly consists of knitting and cutting, i.e. "one needle, one knife". The core thread and the middle section are held by the core thread, and the two ends are cut by the cutter to form a certain length of feather trim yarn, with the feathers standing up naturally, good luster and soft hand. Because of the directional distribution of the feathers, the woven fabric is not only lustrous and soft, but also rich and decorative, and the feather yarn is better than other down yarns because it is not easy to shed. Its taking performance is good, warm, suitable for use in a large number of clothes, hats, scarves, socks, gloves, the product has a great response in the market, especially the growing demand in foreign markets. Feather yarn is a product with high economic benefits and good development prospects.

　　Feather yarn raw material matching

　　Feather yarn can be produced by various fiber yarns, currently commonly used are viscose, nylon, acrylic and polyester. Feathers constitute the "backbone" part is the core, the raw material quality performance must meet the requirements of knitting yarn. The trim yarn is the main part of the feather yarn and determines the perception effect of the finished yarn. The fiber of the trim yarn should be lustrous, elastic and naturally erect; the strength of the trim yarn should not be too high, it should be easy to cut and get a neat length of down, and it is not easy to lose hair, and it is generally appropriate to use filament; the core yarn trim yarn should use the same heat shrinkage rate of raw materials to prevent the finishing and dyeing of the yarn to cause long and short hair, twist shrinkage and uneven strip.

　　To make the core yarn hold the trim yarn effectively, the trim yarn should be 1-3 times thicker than the core yarn. Take 1/6.5Nm lighted nylon feather yarn as an example, the core yarn is70D/24f semi-dull nylon filament, and the trim yarn is 75D/24f three-leaf lighted nylon filament with two feeders, which can ensure the quality of the finished yarn. In the selection of raw materials we made a comparison and screening: 70D/24f semi-dull filament, single fiber surface is smooth, cutting fiber easy to slip in the knife, not easy to cut, but flexural, bending resistance, tensile strength is good, can be used as a core line. With 75D/24f trilobal cross-section lighted fiber, easy to cut and has excellent optical properties, has a large coefficient of friction, more suitable as a trim yarn. The fabric feels thick and durable, and the pile fabric made of it can keep its pile surface full and upright, with good puffiness and glossiness.

　　Detail of feather yarn

　　Process flow

　　Round head machine production → steam shaping → twisting → inspection → packing

　　1、Round head machine production

　　Round head machine production is the key to forming feather yarn. There are 15 needle positions in the cylinder of round head machine, and the distance between adjacent needle positions from1to 15 is from large to small. First, the tongue needle and cutting force are loaded into the specified needle positions according to the process design. Core yarn and trim yarn are introduced separately through two guides. Core yarn is padded into the tongue needle and knitted into core yarn, trim yarn is first padded into the cutter and then introduced into the tongue needle together with core yarn with the rotation of the needle barrel, and the bending, looping and de-looping are completed through the movement of the tongue needle. The top of the cutter has a protruding chamfer, so that when the cutter moves downward with the tongue needle to remove the loop, the padded yarn will not come out of the cutter bar. When the tongue needle moves upward to make the loop, the cutter also moves upward, and the trim yarn on the cutter falls into the lower cutter and is cut off to form the feather. The trim yarn is involved in the core yarn knitting, held by the core yarn, not easy to fall off, and the feather length is related to the tongue needle and cutter distance.

　　When you get on the machine, you should pay attention to the position of the two yarn guides to meet the requirements, in order to ensure that the core yarn and trim yarn are correctly padded on the tongue needle and cutting knife respectively.

　　The cutting knife should be kept sharp and the trim yarn should be moved to the knife to complete the cutting smoothly, otherwise it will break due to accidental stretching and will cause the phenomenon of long and short feathers to occur. The domestic cutter needs to be replaced in 24 hours, although the cutter consumes a lot, but the overall effect will be good.

　　Needle barrel rotation, hook needle and cutting knife up and down movement, due to friction barrel heating, yarn through the barrel will produce overheating shrinkage, especially nylon, the temperature reaches 50 ℃ when the shrinkage is serious and curling, affecting the quality. Need to add lubricant to the needle barrel regularly to reduce friction and cool down. The lubricant should be spindle oil, preferably high speed spindle oil, not butter, which will dissolve at85C and reduce the lubrication effect.

　　2、Steam setting

　　In order to eliminate the internal stress of twisting and prevent braid yarn, it is necessary to heat set the feather yarn under the machine, and steam setting is generally used.

　　In order to make the steam effect good, the volume should not be too big, generally 0.2kg/tube; the yarn tube should be hollow with good steam permeability; choose the proper steam temperature and time according to the characteristics of the fiber, too low to achieve the purpose of setting, too high to affect the yarn quality and waste energy. For example, 1/6.5Nm lighted nylon feather yarn steaming temperature is 80~85℃ and time is 30 minutes.

　　3. Shaking and twisting

　　On the one hand, the water absorbed during steaming can be released through the centrifugal airflow generated by yarn shaking, and on the other hand, the yarn can be straightened out through the yarn guide when shaking. The yarn cools quickly, which helps the feather yarn to keep beautiful and protect the quality of the yarn.

　　The glass transition temperature of nylon fiber is low, and the dyeing speed is fast and easy to dye flowers.

　　4、Inspection

　　The main defects of feather yarn are long and short hair, uneven hairiness and light yarn without feathers.

　　5、Packing

　　In order to prevent the feathers from falling down, it is not suitable to pack tightly, it is better to pack loosely, and it can be sent directly to the dyeing factory for processing. For long-distance transportation, it can be packed in a big package, and it will be unpacked and restored to elasticity after arriving at the destination.

　　Finished feather yarn

　　Dyeing and finishing processing

　　1、Dyeing

　　Feather yarn with nylon, viscose raw materials, nylon on the dyeing speed is fast, not easy to dye evenly, requirements: 1.

　　1, slow temperature rise, use slow dyeing agent. 2, different enterprises different batches of nylon, dyeing performance is not the same, the production of different batches of raw materials used separately, separate packaging.3, insulation time should not be too long, otherwise the elasticity of the yarn into a decline in strength. 4, drying time and temperature also according to the characteristics of the fiber reasonable control.

　　2、Weaving

　　When weaving the whole warp, pay attention to the direction of the fuzz. If multiple batches of yarn are mixed, use them evenly, preferably with rapier machines. Prevent cross-file and shadow defects.

　　Summary

　　Most of the feather yarns use viscose and nylon filament as raw material, the product quality is stable. To develop more new varieties produced by other raw materials, in addition to the adjustment in the process design, the performance of the circular head machine and key equipment need further improvement, such as effective control of yarn tension, high sensitive yarn breakage self-stop problem, reasonable transmission problem, energy saving problem and the service life of the cutter, etc.