812-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 20, 2002
Wool Mill Provides Specialty Business Opportunity
MICHELLE KUNJAPPU
Lancaster Farming Staff
HALIFAX (Dauphin Co.)
On cooler summer days, the hu
midity and temperature allow the
sunlit room’s windows to be
open. In one corner, Lydia keeps
an eye on baby Megan and wash
es wool in steaming water while
John calculates yards per pound
in the other.
It’s another day on the job for
John and Lydia Piper, operators
of the newly-opened Gurdy Run
Mill, Halifax. Recently they lev
eled an old garage and con
structed a room to hold the mill
equipment and a seminar room
upstairs. They opened for busi
ness in January.
Lydia, who grew up on a sheep
farm in New York, and John,
who worked on farms where he
grew up in Williamsport, com
bine their knowledge and experi
ence to care for their horses,
Saint Bernard, flock of 20 Corrie
dale cross sheep, dairy beef, and
angora rabbits on their 70-acre
property. They moved to Halifax
seven years ago from New York.
Carding is designed to align the fibers to put the wool
in usable form, either to spin or get ready for further pro
cessing.
The business had its roots in
Lydia’s interest in hand spinning,
which she began in 1989. John, a
former contractor, was able to de
sign and build the building that
houses the mill.
“We took courses and with her
understanding of spinning and
both of our own experience with
fleeces. We figured we just had to
transfer it to machines,” said
John. “We both had an under
standing of knitting and yam.
“What primarily started this
thing is that we thought this was
a way to complete the farm and
add value to the flock, besides
adding income,” he said. Since
the Pipers were hesitant to begin
a large-scale animal operation
but wanted to make the farm
John prepares the bobbins to receive their newly-plied
more economically productive,
their knowledge of sheep, spin
ning, and wool lent itself to the
idea of running a mill.
They began planning two years
ago after they saw the equipment
manufacturer at the Maryland
Sheep and Wool Festival.
The Pipers believe specializa
tion and variety will help to make
their business more successful.
The seminar room in the build
ing, for example, will someday
provide a forum for guest speak
ers or knitting and spinning
classes.
They are also planning to put
together learn-to-knit kits to sell.
“We can fill niche markets,”
said John. We look for alterna
tives.”
The couple is joined by Tory,
8; Nathan, 5; and Megan, 7
months.
The Equipment
The Piper’s equipment was
manufactured on Prince Edward
Island, Canada. They traveled to
Canada a year ago to learn how
to operate the machinery and still
make frequent phone calls to
speak with the manufacturer and
ask questions.
Since industrial-size mills gen
erally deal with Merino wool and
the Pipers work with exotic fi
bers, the Pipers continually ad
just the machines. These adjust
ments are qecessary as they deal
with differing wool types and
also differing climatic conditions.
The climate-controlled room
hovers around 60 percent humid
ity and 65 degrees.
Not only will static cling slow
up the wool processing, but the
wool could also absorb moisture
or dry out, which not only
changes the weight which the
Pipers base their prices on but
also processes differently accord-
ing to its amount of water reten
tion.
With the equipment the Pipers
are capable of providing custom
scouring, carding, felting, and
spinning the wool and exotic fi
bers. They offer batts, roving, felt,
and yam options for customers.
“This is a specialty industry,”
said John. “It works really well
with exotic wool such as alpaca,
llama, or mohair. The initial in
terest in the mill was specialties”
such as multicolor rovings or
yarns that are variegated.
The equipment brings industri
al quality to a smaller-scale level,
the Pipers believe. “We can do
specialty blends and exotics,”
said John.
For example, owners can sepa
rate the three distinct colors from
Jacob sheep and the Pipers can
process that into roving, keeping
the three distinct bands. “I call it
s’mores,” said Lydia.
Having a smaller mill allows
the couple to process smaller or
ders of wool. “We can go down
as low as five pounds,” said
Lydia. “That’s our advantage.”
Customers, who have come to
Gurdy Run Mill from word-of
mouth advertising, are primarily
hand-spinners that raise specialty
sheep or alpacas. The Pipers feel
that their operation appeals to
those in the wool industry who
are “trying to produce good qual
ity fiber.” Most of their customers
are from Pennsylvania and Mar
yland.
Felt is another option for cus
tomers, as the Pipers can turn 1-3
pounds of carded fiber into a
sheet of felt. One customer has
used the leg and belly hair from
their alpacas to make felt, which
they sew into coats for the al
pacas to wear after they are
sheared, “so they’re wearing their
own coats,” said Lydia. Custom
ers generally use the felt to make
saddle pads or to use in sewing.
To make felt the Pipers card
out at batt of wool, a loosely-con
structed large handful of wool,
which they then place in criss
crossed layers on the table-like
felting machine. Water and soap
is poured over the machine,
which is then closed. Putting
pressure and rotating friction on
the wool creates the felt, which is
then flipped and trimmed.
The Process
Each fleece is approximately
10 pounds of raw weight when
the Pipers receive it. They will
charge $3 to wash the fleece,
which Lydia does in two sinks in
140-degree water and industrial
detergent. “You need to melt the
lanolin,” she said. “If we don’t
get it off the fleece you can’t pro
cess it,” her husband said.
She recommends that custom
ers take the time to skirt the
fleece well, and has advised cus
tomers on how to shear the ani
mals away from hay and vegeta
tion, which creates challenges in
processing. She has found hoof
clippings, nails, pens, and plastic
in the fleeces, which are potenti
ally dangerous for the finely
tuned machinery.
Lydia spins out the fleeces and
washes it again before spreading
it on a rack and placing it in a
cabinet with a fan to circulate the
air. After a day in the drying
rack, the wool is placed in a bin,
weighed, and tagged so the own
ers get the same fiber back.
For the next step, “a shop vac
is a vital part of mill equipment,”
said Lydia. The couple cleans the
closet area and teeth of the pick
ing machine to remove any color
from the previous fleece. The ma-
Lydia washes the wool in 140-degree water to melt the
lanolin, which allows for easier processing. After sdrying,
the wool is placed in a bin, weighted, and tagged so the
owners get the same fibers back.
The finished product is long skeins, which will be
twisted together and sent to the customer.
chine, a rotating bed of nails,
opens the fibers and blows them
into fluffy bundles in the closet.
Weighing the now-fluffy fibers
allows the Pipers to calculate
how much anti-static spray to
put on the fleece, which they mix
around through the fibers.
At the next step, the carding
machine, the fiber is weighed out
in ounces and placed in incre
ments along the belt for consis
tency in the end product. The
Pipers can layer or blend colors
at this point for the customers.
The carder produces a batt,
cloud, or roving that is slightly
twisted to help the fibers hold to
gether. Hand-spinners order the
roving, which they will make into
their own yam. According to
John, carding is designed to align
the fibers to put the wool in us
able form, either to spin or get
ready for further processing.
To make the fibers into a yam,
the draw frame aligns the fibers,
evens out the roving, and creates
a consistent size and weight.
John passes it through the ma
chine several times before taking
the fibers to the spinning ma
chine.
He then feeds the buckets of fi
bers into the spinner, which he
has set according to the size and
feel of the yam that the customer
has requested. Categories start at
lace and move to fingering, sport,
double knit, worsted, and lastly
bulky, spun by yards per pound.
Alpaca fiber and heavy wool
may yield 600 yards per pound of
fibers while finer wools spun into
lacy threads may yield 3,5000
yards per pound.
At this point he can spin three
different colors together to create
a variegated thread.
After the single-thread spin
ning is done, John reverses the
direction of the machine to ply
the yarn, combining two or three
single threads into a balanced
yam.
Making a consistent, balanced
yam is a touchy process, since an
unbalanced yam can create a
thread that will skew when the
garment is washed, instead of
hanging nicely.
Skeining is the last part of the
process, as the thread is moved
from the bobbins by the skein
winder to produce large, twisted
skeins that are the finished prod
uct.
Customers are charged for the
finished amount of product, since
several pounds of wool typical
ly S'A-6 pounds in a fleece with
heavy lanolin are lost in the
processing. The Pipers may do
70-100 pounds of roving and
10-15 pounds of yam per week.
Although expansion is in their
long-range vision, the couple is
not looking for rapid growth, as
they like to keep their turnover
rate at its current point of two to
three weeks. “This gives us a
chance to keep up with it,” she
said. The majority of the wool
goes out as roving, since most of
the customers are hand-spinners.
The carding machine
produces a batt or roving
that is slightly twisted to
help the fibers hold togeth
er.