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Quality: usually refers to the
diameter or fineness of wool. the finer the wool, the batter the
quality.
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Rise: a natural break and sometimes fibre overlap between wool
growth in one cycle or year and wool growth in the next cycle or year.
Shearing before the Rise may leave some "old" fleece or Skodda on the
sheep that can matt and felt. It can be combed or sheared off before the
new fleece gets very long. Shearing after the Rise can leave a matted
layer of overlapped fleece at the cut end of the fleece which may have the
same effect as having second cuts in the fleece.
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Rooing: hand plucking of wool from a sheep that has an appropriate
Rise. May leave a softer hand to the wool than mechanical shearing.
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Scadder: mane of coarse hair type fibres around the neck which may
continue down the back of the animal.
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Scoured Wool (Scouring): wool
that has had the grease, soil and suint removed by washing in water and
soap or by a solvent washing process.
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Secondary Follicle:
smaller follicles clustered around the primary follicle. Testing shows
that a large number of secondary follicles for each primary follicle
results in finer, more uniform, denser fleece.
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Secondary/Primary Ratio: the
ratio of secondary wool follicles to primary wool follicles.
Merino has the highest ration of secondary to primary follicles, in the
16 - 20/1 range.
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Second Cuts: short, prickly fibres created when the fleece is cut
twice. This can happen when the shears come away from the body of the
animal leaving a ridge that is cut again on a subsequent blow. Any fleece
ridges that do occur can be cleaned off later so as not to contaminate the
fleeces when they are sheared.
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SD: Standard deviation, this is a measure of the amount of
deviation above and below the AFD. The smaller the SD, the more uniform
the sample.
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SF (Spin Fineness): shown on Natural Fibre Centre histograms, it
is a measure combining the diameter of the fibres with the variance of the
fibres in the sample. A Spin Fineness of 24 microns means that the fleece
is estimated to spin as if it had a mean or average fibre diameter of 24
microns. The more uniform the fleece, the finer the Spin Fineness will be.
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Shear Weight (fleece weight): the weight of all usable fibre taken
off one animal at shearing.
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Silky: often refers to fibre which has no crimp and which cots
and matts easily. Considered a defect in many wool types in the
larger wool world.
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Skirting: removing coarser,
inferior or shorter fibre, tags and debris from
the blanket or other parts of a fleece. The belly fleece is usually taken
off and disposed of during shearing and never gets to the skirting table.
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Skodda: bits of fleece from the previous year felted to the tips
of the fleece or matted areas on the shorn end of the fleece caused by the
overlapping fleece of the Rise.
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Staple: a lock of fleece containing a number of individual fibres.
Staple/lock structure can vary significantly within a fleece and between
fleeces.
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Staple Length: the length of the fibre from cut base to tip,
without stretching.
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Suint: secretions from the
sweat glands, deposited in the wool. Shetland wool generally has a
low grease and suint content thought it does vary from sheep to sheep.
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Tags: bits of coarse, felted or short fibre from areas such as the
topknot and lower legs, tail. Tags not containing dung locks may work for
felting. Good compost.
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Tender: fleece that breaks easily at more
than one point along the
length of the staple or fibre. Often caused by weathering or some
continuing trauma, stress or
health problem suffered by the animal over time prior to shearing.
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