To this extent, the traditional hand-made cleaning method has almost reached its limit. Even if you wash it a few more times, it will not produce much effect.

In addition, Zhang Ran also asked Zheng Jin that if he followed the method he learned from the Huns in the past, the next step was to dry it. According to Zheng Jin, at the turn of spring and summer, the Huns would generally use river water nearby to clean the wool accumulated in the past, and then put it in the open air to dry it. After a long period of wind and sun exposure, the smell of sheep will become much lighter. At this time, you can use it to make felt or fur.

However, this method has great seasonal restrictions and the cycle is too long. In order to make a piece of wool felt or fur coat, it doesn't matter if the Huns could wait for it for half a year or a year, but Zhang Ran couldn't wait for three days.

In order to clean the wool as soon as possible and eliminate the odor in it, Zhang Ran abandoned the traditional practice mentioned by Zheng Jin and ordered people to soak the washed wool into salt water and lime water respectively. Then, they repeatedly grasped and rubbed them in these two solutions.

After trying and comparing, Zhang Ran found that the effect of cleaning wool in salt water is actually not very good. The washed wool still has a dull color and has a certain degree of odor. However, the wool after being soaked in salt water will become very soft and the color is much brighter than originally.

If you use lime water to clean the wool, it will not only remove some of the oil in the wool, but also play a certain role in bleaching. The washed wool will be white in color and basically do not have too many odors.

After Zhang Ran combined the two and asked the craftsmen to try it out for a lot, he finally summarized a more effective wool washing method.

First, Zhang Ran asked the craftsmen to pick the wool roughly, first pick out the grass seeds, mud and other things in the wool. Then put it in warm water and soak it repeatedly. After cleaning the debris in the wool, soak it in salt water and wash it again and again. Finally, soak it in lime water and wash it repeatedly until the wool is washed and turned into the original white, then rinse it with clean water, take it out and put it in the greenhouse to dry it.

The temperature in winter is very low, so even if it is placed on a kang with a higher temperature, it is difficult to dry the wet wool in a short time. Zhang Ran added some braziers to the house to increase the indoor temperature. Then wiped the water droplets attached to the wool with dry linen, so that the wool will dry faster.

After the wool is washed with water, even after it is dried, it is mostly tied together. It is necessary to repeatedly comb with a comb to make the wool fluffy.

After this series of complicated processes, the wool becomes white, soft, and fluffy, and basically has no odor anymore, so it can be spun into thread.

Under Zhang Ran's guidance, weavers with excellent skills in the weaving room twisted the wool into fine wool, twisted it on the spinning wheel, and swayed the spinning wheel at the same time... As the spinning wheel slowly rotated, the white and fluffy quickly turned into a long thin wool.

The textile technology of the Han Dynasty was very mature, and the process of spinning wool into wool thread was very similar to spinning or spinning, and its difficulty was even slightly lower than spinning, because the thread was very thin and could easily break if you were not careful, while the wool was thicker, and relatively speaking, it was a little tougher.

After the wool is spun into wool, it can be used to knit wool or sweater. In fact, the raw materials used for sweaters and wool are all wool threads. The difference lies in the thickness of the wool and the difference in knitting method.

Generally speaking, sweaters are mostly knitted and knitted in a purely hand-made loop. The sweaters knitted in this way have a loose texture and are elastic and suitable for lining.

Most of the wools are woven by weaving. The wool is clearly warp and weft, interlaced horizontally and vertically, with a tight and thick texture, with good wind resistance, suitable for external wear and strong warmth.

Sweaters and woolen have their own benefits. According to Zhang Ran's idea, each type should be made into a batch. In this way, you can wear woolen and sweater on the outside, which can not only protect you from wind and keep warm, but also be very suitable for wearing in cold northern areas.

However, after careful study, Zhang Ran found that his ideas could only exist in beautiful fantasies, and in practice, they would not work at all.

Why is this happening? That is because most of the sheep that are commonly raised are introduced or spread from the northern grasslands. This kind of sheep was called Mongolian sheep in later generations, and is a kind of coarse-haired sheep, which is very different from the fine-haired sheep that is common in later generations.

The wool spun with thick wool is naturally much thicker than the wool spun with fine wool. There are also many plush and burrs on the wool, which is very thorny. This kind of wool is very good for making felt, but it is not suitable for making clothes.

What's more, the wool processing technology produced by Zhang Ran is still very crude and is far from comparable to the mature wool textile technology in later generations.

The superposition of the two directly leads to the quality of the wool thread. If the existing wool thread is knitted into clothes, I am afraid no one is willing to wear it!

Zhang Ran frowned and thought hard for a long time, but Zhang Ran still couldn't come up with a perfect solution. Instead, he found helplessly that in the current situation, if you can't find a fine wool that is more suitable for wool textiles, then it would be a fool to improve the quality of the wool thread and make a qualified sweater.

Zhang Ran himself could not find a solution, so he could only ask others for it. So he summoned the craftsmen to explain the whole story and let everyone find a solution together.

Finally, with the brainstorming of everyone, everyone found a compromise solution, which was to use the cloth made of wool as filler or interlayer like willow catkins or feathers to sew it into the clothes. In this way, it can not only keep warm but also avoid the problem of wool tying people.

Moreover, since this wool cloth is used as a sandwich or filler, its quality is not that important, as long as it is not as smelly as before!

So, after weighing the pros and cons, Zhang Ran decisively adopted this method and gave up the original idea of ​​making sweaters or woolen hairs.
Chapter completed!