# Setting up a fiber mill...



## lexierowsell

Hotz' post on another thread got me thinking-- what does it take to set up a cottage industry fiber mill? 

I have the space, and could certainly benefit from the equipment myself... If I could make it pay for itself, I'm sure we would look into it!


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## Wind in Her Hair

a friend of mine, Deb Peterson aka OldManWoolFarm, and I like to go to auctions and we cross paths there every now and again, oftentimes doing battle over old drum carders or handcards or the like. But one day I could not choose between two auctions - so I went to the one in Wisconsin and she went to the one in Cambridge, MN - and that has made all the difference. 

I came home with a nice garden tiller and...

Deb came home with the remnants of the Cambridge Fiber Mill.

Check out the blog posts from 2013...

http://oldmanwoolfarm1.blogspot.com/


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## Wind in Her Hair

and here...


[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMjx-t3tH3A[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGiYUF2l-Uk[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkPKBQhX6-A[/ame]


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## Osiris

That's really cool. It's so good to see Americans returning to the manufacture of something again.


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## PKBoo

A friend of mine just started a mill - she bought an operational mill, and the backlog of fiber to process along with it. Her turn-around time right now is 3 months! I just dropped some fleeces off last night - it's a little longer than what I was hoping, but since she's just up and running, and she's got all these fleeces to do that came along with the equipment, I understand!

She quit her job, and is going to do this full time, so I'm really hoping things work out for her. The roving I saw last night that she had processed is GORGEOUS!!!! She did an amazing job with them, and I can't wait to get mine back!

Here's a link to her FB page:
 https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=318741378687 

And her website:
 http://www.sterlingwoolmill.com/ 

The upstairs is a cute shop where she has some things for sale on one side, and has an area for Fiber Night, and her studio is on the other. Downstairs is the mill equipment. Great set-up! I'm so so happy for her - this has been a dream for a very long time for her!


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## MullersLaneFarm

*AverageJo *had a fiber mill for many years. I'll let her know to come looking here. She'll have great insight.


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## lexierowsell

Thanks so much you guys!


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## Marchwind

I know of a fiber mill (all the equipment) for sale here in Michigan. I don't know the price but could find out for you. Someone also said Ohio Valley was selling their equipment. 

Deb Peterson has sold yarns and fibers for decades but only recently started her own mill. Prior to that she would send it out to be processed but did the dying and and winding herself.


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## lexierowsell

Thanks marchie!!


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## AverageJo

Sorry I'm a bit late to this thread. Thanks Cyndi for messaging me.

We owned and operated Fulton Fiber Mill for quite a few years. If I hadn't gotten pregnant, we'd probably still be doing it! We ran it at a nice PROFIT and had to do very little in the way of advertising. In fact, the ONLY advertising we did was at one alpaca show and were quickly swamped with fiber. But that was years ago and I'm not sure what the demand is out there now, so do your research.

We purchased a brand new Mini Mill from Canada. Get the dimensions of the equipment you're going to purchase, then add 3 foot around it so you can manuver and clean, etc. Figure out where you are going to put tables, scales, fiber, spools, cones, etc. You also need a place to look at the incoming fiber BEFORE it goes to your 'waiting' storage area. We had a fleece come in that was supposedly an award winning fleece but it was infested with moth larva as it was stored poorly. Couldn't wrap that fleece back up quick enough!!

Make up a business plan. Be ultra conservative on the amount you can produce in a day. Mini Mills said you could produce 'x' amount of fiber through their carder. I don't know what they were processing because we could only do a 3 ounce feed instead of the 5-6 ounce feed they said we could do. Figure out what the bottleneck will be. We couldn't wash enough fiber in a day and get it dry quick enough to keep the entire mill going. You can stage your orders a bit. For instance, run one order through the carder and as that order is getting spun, etc., run an order of just roving. By the time the first order is done (draw frame, spun, plyed, coned/skeins), you will probably have the third order through the carder and ready to get spun. 

When you are done with the business plan, go to your local bank and see if you can get a loan. See if there are any start-up business grants that you can get (free money), too.

That reminds me... Place the machines so you can have one operator running two or more machines. I could keep the fiber separator running as well as the picker and carder while Marc kept the spinner and plyer going while washing fiber.

The machines we had were:
Standard top loading washer with the agitator pulled out to wash the fiber/wool.
Stainless steel utility racks for drying.
Picker
Fiber Separator (removes the guard hair and coarse stuff)
Carder
Draw Frame
8 spindle spinner for spinning
4 spindle spinner for plying (that way we could maximize production)
Cone Winder
Skein Winder

Oh!! You HAVE to have good water supply and a HOT water heater! We had to have our equipment in town as the water here on the farm has rust in it. That wouldn't do well for white fiber!! LOL.

That's what I have at the top of my head. Please feel free to message me with questions!


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## lexierowsell

Cyndi- bless your heart! What great connection for me! 

AverageJo- is there a better way to chat with you? Like facebook etc? I'm on Cyndi's friends, please add me there!


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## hotzcatz

Oh, keep the conversation going here! The more folks who learn how to set up a fiber mill the better, I'd think?

Thanks AverageJo! That's brilliant information. Was it Belfast equipment that you were using?

Taking the agitator out of the washing machine is brilliant. We can get those for free since folks throw them away when they quit agitating. Apparently it's one little plastic part under the barrel that usually goes. In this case, that's a good thing.

Okay, so following a fleece or two through the process, we start out with the separate receiving area. However, in case (or when, considering the quantity of fiber going through the mill) moths do show up, what's the best way to get rid of them? Is there anything that can be done to moth proof the facility? Plant lavender as a hedge all around the building, maybe?

So each incoming shipment is opened separately and inspected for what, exactly? Moths, obviously. Length of fiber? Suitability of the fiber for what the folks want done with it? How much VM and dags are we supposed to remove? Any? Charge more? Just dump all the fiber into the wash and follow the people's instructions of what they want to have it turn into and what happens, happens? Seems if we followed that method we'd end up producing inferior products and get a bad rep. How much education of clients is involved with a fiber mill? Do most folks ask for their fiber to be made into something possible?

Hmm, if we have four washing machines (since they are free, we may as well have more than one) how much fiber can we wash at once? How many pounds of fiber will fit into a standard washing machine? I'm guessing five pounds or less? Maybe only two or three? Is there anyway to filter the water and reuse it? We're gonna fill up the septic tank pretty quick at this rate. Maybe the rinse water can be reused on the next first run? Hmm, I dunno how robust washing machine water pumps are.

For washing, instead of the washing machines, I was thinking of using something along the line of a commercial four compartment sink. Put a burner across the bottom to heat it up (which would keep the temperatures even across the wash/wash/rinse/rinse procedure) and have a rail with suspended baskets above the sinks. Load the fiber into the baskets, use block and tackle to raise them up, lower into the really hot soapy water, soak, up, drain, over to the next sink, soak, drain, etc. It wouldn't be hard to "roboticize" the line, either since it's standard lengths of distance being moved. If water was put into the rinse end of the sinks, piped between the sinks and drained out of the first soapy side and then ran through a filter and back into the rinse end, that would reuse the water as well as keep it hot so less heating would be required. However, it probably wouldn't take that long before we could wash way more fiber than we could process. Hmm, could probably use those plastic laundry sinks lined up (with an outside heat source instead of under the table - possible something like a heat exchanger so there'd be no dirt buildup from the used water) with PVC and netting baskets instead of stainless steel. Less expensive to build.

How much fiber can a one of those minimills actually process in one day? Should we have a big drying room and have a "wash day" and fill up the drying room with a week's worth of fibers and then just work through the drying room full of fibers? 

So, washed, dried. Do we then run it through a picker? I'd guess the alpaca would need to be de-haired? Isn't that a separate machine?

Would it be possible to have the picker blow the fiber out into a chute above the carder and have the pickings go directly into the carder? Maybe have the picked fiber go into a big basket that would run on an overhead rail to the carder? Can you see I'm trying to make the least amount of human effort to get the job done? Workers are expensive.

Then it's carded and if the folks want batts or roving, then it's done. Packed into boxes and mailed away. Hmm, get the money - then mail it away. Is there a program that's useful for keeping track of clients and money and such?

For the folks who want yarn, then it goes to the draw frame and the spinners, then plied and then onto a skeiner? Put into cones? 

It might be worthwhile to do a summer's apprenticeship at a mill somewhere, huh?


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## BrownYaks

My biggest question is what brand machinery are these cottage mills using?


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## AverageJo

Great questions!! 

We had the Mini-Mill from Canada, but that was years ago. Contact them for pricing. I listed what we had above. Check out any other mill going out of business and ask lots of questions. Machines that were built for processing sheep are normally only able to handle a staple length of 3-4 inches. If you want to process fleeces longer than that, perhaps llama, alpaca or even mohair, you will need the equipment to handle the longer lengths. 

Why, you ask? Think of the cottage drum carders. There is a feed roller that feeds the larger drum. If the fiber gets wrapped around the feed roller, it will just build up and jam the larger drum. Now multiply this problem by 5 or 6 as there are that many in a commercial carder. With the spinners, there is a feeder roller as well as a back roller. They are set at a pre-designed spacing. A hand-spinner can adjust the space between her hands so that the fiber can slip to the thickness of yarn she wants. The equipment can't. If you have fiber that is longer than this distance, the rollers are both pulling on the same fiber which will cause slubs (thick parts) in the yarn. We just called it 'novelty yarn' and went with it, but customers really don't like this as they want a more commercial look to the yarn.

Let me 'walk' a fleece through our process and answer the questions that came up:

Receiving area: Look over the fleece first. Check for moths is a given, but also look for the debris amounts, second cuts while it was sheared as these will pill, strength and consistency of the fiber length (take a sample and snap it while holding the tip and base; if it breaks, it will break during processing). Dirt! Alpacas roll, so dirt is a given but watch just how much is in it as your customers might get testy with you when they get back much less than what they gave you. We actually gave back one customer's dirt and stuff back!

One time when we reached into a bag, I got poked! Pulled out a piece of barbed wire! Wonder how the shearer didn't find that one! Hopefully your customer has skirted the fleece well and removed the heavily soiled areas around the neck and breech. This is always a learning/teaching time. Help your customers figure out what the fiber would work out best for. You can't make a bulky yarn with suri alpaca or mohair without adding sheep wool!

We charged more if we had to clean/skirt or cut a fleece (2 year growth fleece). Your choice on if you accept it or not. 

This teaching/learning time helped cover our own butts and reputation. If they were stubborn and wanted what they wanted and that was that, we'd do the best to provide them with the best we could.... the old saying goes, "The customer is always right." It normally only took once to prove to them that we knew what we were talking about. It was our experience that first-timers were happy for us to guide them with their choices.

This is when we have our survey for the customer. We weigh the fleece and write down the customer information and what they want made with the fleece. This survey then follows the fleece throughout the entire process!

Some mills have a tumbler that they fluff the fleece with to remove a lot of dirt before washing. We just fluffed by hand before it went into the wash. It IS easier to get the dirt out before it becomes mud.

If there were moths or moth larve, we rejected the fleece! Period. If you get one that has just a few and you want to try... put it directly into the wash with REALLY hot water!

Washing: We used a washing machine with the agitator popped out of it. Before you get one, make sure you can remove the agitator. Fill it with HOT water, TURN THE WASHER OFF!!, add your cleaning solution, swirl gently to mix, then gently put in the fiber/wool. Let it soak 30-45 minutes. If you have alpaca, lift out the fiber if you can (we usually put it in bags) so that the dirt stays at the bottom. Leaving the lid open so it doesn't spin, drain all the water and clean it out. Then put the fiber back in and spin the water out of it. Wash again if you have a greasy fleece. Pull the fiber back out, fill with hot water again, soak, pull it out, drain, spin the water out, take it out and fluff it out on your drying racks.

How much can you wash at once? Depends on the cleanliness of the fiber and how quickly your water heater can recover! You really need to have HOT water and remove all the cleaners out. I always told our workers that the MOST IMPORTANT step in the entire mill was washing the fiber correctly. If it's sticky with dirt, lanolin or cleaner, it's going to gum up all the other equipment!! 

You could perhaps re-heat the rinse water for the next washing, but there really isn't a way of filtering the water. It is a lot of water, so not sure if a septic is the way to go. Wonder if your area would give you a waiver and allow you to do a pond instead ???

You can also use large sinks. Instead of the commercial four compartment sink, I'd line up 4 of the really deep utility sinks and do some kind of lift system to lift the fiber from one sink into the next. Not sure how you would spin it out to remove the water/cleaners though between them. Use your imagination and go for it!

Mini-Mills also has a fiber/wool washing machine but I have no idea how much they can handle. That would be more of a question for them.

We would wash while we were processing the previous day's orders. Lots of down time while waiting for fiber to soak. We had 4 or 5 of the utility racks full of fiber drying. Get a dehumidifier to help with this, especially if you're not in AZ!

Next step is the picker. If we had a large run that was more than one fleece to be run together, we'd start the blending at the picker. Throw in a bit of this fleece and a bit of that. We had a 'picker room' that was the women's bathroom converted so it would catch the picked fiber. Walk in the door and scoop it up when it all settled to the floor area.

Following this was the fiber separator. This machine would take out a lot of the heavier guard hair and a lot of dirt and vegetation. If we thought the customer would complain about how much was removed, we'd simply bag it and give it back to them along with their finished products.

"Would it be possible to have the picker blow the fiber out into a chute above the carder and have the pickings go directly into the carder?" I wouldn't suggest this as you want a consistent feed coming into the carder, but you could certainly try it if you wanted. The picker really makes things fly!! You might be able to devise something from the fiber separator into the carder, depending on how much gets removed.

What comes out of the fiber separator is what we called a 'cloud'. Not as refined of a card as the carder, but at least has the guard hair and a lot of debris taken out.

The carder then produces batts or roving. We would line a tube 'catcher' with a plastic bag and let the roving go down into that if the customer wanted it free, otherwise we would wind it into 'bumps' right from the carder. Many mills stop right here and do not offer spinning into yarns.

If you want yarn, the roving would go through the draw frame for further blending and aligning the fibers for spinning. Spin into a single, ply 2 or more singles into a balanced yarn, then wind it onto a cone or into skeins. 

When we sold our mini-mill, we helped set up the equipment and helped train the new owners. I might be swayed to do this again....

Good luck!!


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## PKBoo

Awesome information Jo! I don't really have anything to add except something I saw at the mill on Monday night.

She had a commercial washing maching that had a basket with 3 dividers in it, so she could do 3 4-lb fleeces at a time. The water drained into a recycler, so she would save the last rinse water to be used for the first wash cycle of the next batch. It was a big silver thing!


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## Maura

When I brought my fleece into Zeilinger&#8217;s they always opened the bags and told me what nice fleece I had (well, most of it). I had no idea they were looking for bugs.


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## hercsmama

What a great thread this is!!I imagine how I missed it.:nanner:

MW, could we maybe Sticky this? Or at the least add it to the 101 thread so it doesn't get lost?:happy2:


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## Marchwind

I can Stick it!


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## hercsmama

:nanner:
Thanks so much Marchie!!
This is a lot of really good info, I'd hate to see it disappear.:happy2:


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## BrownYaks

I just found a mill for sale for $150,000


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## Marchwind

Did it say if it was for just the equipment or was this for the building and all?


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