Durable, Cheap Furs From Lambskins

John I. Hardy.

Mouton meets the need for a durable fur that can be worn every day and on special occasions. It is attractive and inexpensive. It can be worn in the city or country or on the campus.

A chemical process straightens the curly fleece of yearling lambskins to produce mouton. In one method of manufacture, the dried skins are softened in a vat of warm water in which the heat is controlled. The skins are then washed and treated so that partial hydrolysis sets in. The wool protein is softened and amino groups are freed. Plasticizing agents are now ready to act on the fibers to make them pliable. The crimpy fibers are straightened by brushing and set permanently through the application of heat and pressure. The fibers are then dyed. One popular shade simulates beaver, but mouton can be dyed any color.

The production of mouton was stimulated by its use as a lining for aviators' coats in the Second World War. In order to meet that demand skins of older sheep were also used. They make good mouton, but the leather is thicker and heavier and not too desirable for coats.

In view of the large number of lambs born each year, the supply of raw material seems almost limitless. The normal annual production of shearlings from domestic sheep is between 2 million and 3 million. Imports run as high as 4 million.

So much has been written about mouton and the simplicity of producing it that many persons mistakenly believe every yearling lambskin can be used. Trade estimates for 1947 were that about 2 million pounds of lambskin pelts were processed into mouton. It may at times be necessary to examine 15 or 20 mouton skins before a choice one is found. The less desirable skins can be used for such purposes as bedroom slippers and coat linings. The requirements for good mouton coats are exacting, and there is need for better-quality skins.

For good mouton production, the processor selects pelts having wool grading as fine as 60's, 62's, or 64's, standard numerical wool grades. Pelts having coarse wool are not satisfactory for mouton production. The numerical grades for wool are the same as what is sometimes referred to as the count system for worsted yarn. Wool grading 60's is of the fineness that will produce 60 hanks of single yarn per pound of clean wool. In this case one hank measures 560 yards. Therefore, one clean pound of 60's wool will spin 33,600 yards of single yarn. Wool of 70's and 80's spinning count, which is exceedingly fine, may offer difficulties in manufacture because it tends to mat and the fibers do not straighten sufficiently.

WITH THE IDEA of helping the industry produce still better mouton and of helping sheepmen obtain a greater return for their lambskins, the Bureau of Animal Industry, with the cooperation of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, investigated the quality of various moutons with new and improved methods of testing. The Ohio station produced and furnished the lambskins to, the processing plant, and the Bureau tested the finished skins. A study was made of the fiber-fineness distribution, the density of fur, the weight of the finished mouton, the thickness of the skin, and the straightening properties of the fibers. Considerable variations were found in those qualities, even in sheep of the same breeding.

To determine the fiber-fineness distribution, tufts of fibers were taken from the finished skins at various locations, such as the shoulder, side, thigh, and back. The fibers were cross-sectioned, their fineness was measured in microns, and their variabilities of fineness were noted.

For the density measurements, 1- by 2-centimeter skin samples were removed, with fibers attached, and inserted in a cross-sectioning device. A standard was set up to furnish a measure of relative density of the fibers. That is, the wool fibers of the samples were cut to a length of 1.17 millimeters just above the skin surface on the 1- by 2-centimeter sections, and those fibers were weighed on a microbalance.

A special micrometer was used to measure the thickness of the skin on several areas from which the fibers had been carefully removed. The individual fibers were then projected onto a screen in order to get some information on the degree to which the fibers had been straightened.

Mouton has often reached such a high degree of perfection that it is impossible for many to distinguish between it and much more expensive furs. It is truly amazing when one realizes that mouton, admired for its attractiveness and beauty, is produced from a pelt with a curly fleece, having from 10 to 20 crimps to the inch. Mouton is durable when properly made and excels in many ways the fibers stay straight, are resistant to moisture, and may be readily cleaned.

JOHN I. HARDY has been director of research on animal fibers in the Bureau of Animal Industry since 1923. He has conducted research on fur fibers, wool blends, the relation of nutrition to production of hides and wools, and tests for wool fineness and shrinkage. Dr. Hardy has degrees from Rhode Island State College, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Missouri.

OUT ON THE ranches of the Southwest and Pacific Northwest an unusual use is made of the mane and tail hair of the horse and the switch of the cow's tail.

The cowboys make hair ropes, called mecates, to be used as reins for rawhide hackamores on the noses of young cow horses being broken and trained. The idea came down from the Spanish vaqueros of the region. Hair that has been cleaned, dried, and shaken out in a fluffy pile is fed out in a strand by one cowboy while the strand is twisted into long lengths by another. A hooked nail, or something similar, held in a carpenter's brace is often used to do the twisting. Two single strands are usually twisted together into a double strand. Two double strands are then twisted together, making a total of four strands in the finished rope. When the ends are securely tied the strands will not ravel out.

Strands of different colors, natural or dyed, can be twisted together to make a variegated pattern. I once made some snow-white mecates from hair bobbed from the tails of several hundred white-faced Hereford cows. The tails had been bobbed to show the cows had been vaccinated. Cows' tail hair makes a soft rope. Horse mane is intermediate and horsetail hair makes a very stiff, heavy mecate. The size of rope can be regulated by the amount of hair fed into the single strands in the beginning. Orman S. Weaver, Soil Conservation Service, Yakima, Wash.