Part 2

Last post, we reviewed some of the properties of felting needles. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2025/03/27/why-do-felting-needles-break-do-you-blame-your-tools-or-is-it-operator-error/

The Machines

So, what does industry do with these fascinating needles?

The Felting needles are used in part of a line of machines used to create various types of non-woven/felt material. Here are a few examples of what come out the other end of the machines: automotive textiles, filtration fabrics, to sheets of felt. The needle chosen for each type of felting machine, pre-felting, felting and structuring if needed, will give you various finished products. Which needle for which job is very hush hush with only generalizations (automotive, filters, landscape fabrics, acoustics…)are given.

Let’s take a look at a sample line of machines to make felt.

8) Pre-needling machine set up in parallel boards.

There are a number of different machines in a line, and the configuration will depend on the nonwoven that is being produced. As in spinning, there are machines at the front of the line that bake the bale of fiber (possibly wool), which fluffs and separates it from its compacted state in the bale. As the fiber goes through the line, the fiber will be carded, drafted, and the crosslapper will lay the web into a uniform thickness in the number of layers as required for the final product. The web drafter will make sure the web is an even thickness.  Eventually, the web will meet the pre-felting, then felting machines with their board or boards of felting needles. There may also be another machine holding structuring needles depending, again, on what is wanted as the end product.  After that, it exits and is sent to the winder to create rolls of whatever was being made.

9.1 – 9.3) Some of the machines in a production line

Depending on the machine used (Pre-needling or Main needling), the needles boards may have a different orientation with 2 adjacent needle boards (2x 4,500 needles/m) or in the main felting machine that I was reading about, 2 sets of boards working towards each other.  There are other configurations, this was just one of the sample combination lines I was looking at. For the main boards, “single or parallel uppers” were listed as having “2,000 needles/m while the Single- and multi-board operation upstroke and downstroke, tandem operation had 3,000 needles/m, 5,000 needles/m or 8,000 needles/m”. Basically that means there are a lot of needles in a board of needles. I do remember I found the speed the machines were running somewhere, but I can’t find the info at the moment. I remember it seemed very fast!

In the needle boards/beds (I have heard both, but G-B uses boards) the needles are set in using the crank (that odd little bend at the top of the needle. It is always nice to know it has a purpous not just poking my finger if I turn the needle the wrong way.) The angle of the crank will position the needle as it meets the web.  There is a tool to help get the needle in the correct orientation. If you do not get the alignment correct to the moving web the implication was less efficiency and greater numbers of broken or bending needles.

10) Crank positioning tool

It is also important to get the working depth of the needle set correctly in the machine.  Since wear analyses of the needles, have shown that the first barb performs around half of the total work carried out by the needle, and that in most cases only three to five barbs are actually interacting with the web.  As hand needle felters, we may also be primarily using the first barbs as we work, but we may have to borrow the industry’s equipment to find out.

In Industry, during a job, needles are not changed all at once, but usually 1/3 at a time. During the run of a job, the needles to be regularly cleaned of fiber dust, checked for any bent or broken needles, and sprayed with an anti-corrosive oil. (Regularly checking our needles would be good practice for hand felters, too.) How long needles remain in the needle board can be measured in machine operating hours, stroke rates or production quantity.

In the boards, the needles can catch and bend or break, they will also dull (tip or barb) over time. Dulling is not usually a problem hand felters need to worry about, unless you are working into a vary needle-dulling surface (which sounds like a silly idea) or are using a fiber with extreme abrasive qualities (I wonder what that would be? Has anyone tried to felt fiberglass? I have no idea why you might want to, but that might be strong enough to destroy barbs quicker than wool.  I would also not try asbestos fiber, it would destroy your lungs and probably give you cancer. I am getting distracted (it may be getting close to time for meds again, back on topic). Stick to wool and other fluffy fibers.  We will not stab our needles nearly as many times as a needle will impale fiber in the commercial machines.  Unfortunately, even if our needle tips are unlikely to dull significantly, we still will have needles bend or break.

Remember I mentioned cycling out needle, a third at a time, in a needle board during production?  I recently saw a complaint on YouTube about the purchase of a set of needles sold in three lengths. I am sure you have seen some resellers list their needles as “Small, Medium and large” with no specified gauge. Avoid these, you may get perfectly good needles, but in three lengths of the same gauge. Or worse, as this buyer described her cheap 3 length needles as “having blunt points and the barbs were worn and shallow”. This suggests she may have received needles pulled from a needle board. If a seller doesn’t know what gauge they are selling, be suspicious. They may be cheap, but they still may not be worth the price. If you receive worn-looking barbs on your needle, they are not moving fiber as efficiently as expected, then yes, you can blame your tools and the re-seller. Used industrial needles (pulled from a needle board) will also be weaker due to the hours of wear already on the needle and will be more likely to break, especially if we forget rule #2 (Never change vector, the direction the needle goes in is the direction the needle goes out).  So far, this seems to be a limited problem, but it’s good to be aware and cautious. Although the cheap price may be very tempting, stick to reputable resellers or manufacturers.

11) Sold by three lengths but no gauges.

In this older add, above, with needles sold by 3 lengths, it looks like the two on the right might be the same gauge and the short one may be finer, but the seller only lists lengths of overall needle. We can tell from the picture that the needles should have three 3 barbs per side. If you need to be extremely frugal, and sometimes these no-gauge needles are no cheaper than ones with information, ask the seller questions. If you don’t like the answer, don’t buy them. You could wind up with something you don’t want. (Sometimes, the deal is too good to be true.)

 12.1 – 12.2) Here is an image of needles in three sizes being sold. Lots of measurements of lengths, but no mention of gauge.

Some sellers, who are not hand needle felters, just don’t realize what we need or want to know. If they get asked often enough they may start adding more information that is helpful to us. The Doer needles (non-industry site) now has much more helpful information on it. the improvement in information is likely due to a lot of pestering by hand needle felters, and more than just me.

I have bought lots of needles from Etsy resellers, Amazon, Aliexpress and at fiber festivals.  So far, I have not run into any that seem to have warn barbs or dulled tips. I tend to buy from sellers who know what they are reselling or directly from one of the manufacturers. Being curious, I have bought a few of the various needle felting kits, which include assorted needles (some un-gauged), a working surface and other tools. So far, all the needles have looked new and unused. Some of the needles do feel a bit less flexible (likely higher carbon content?), but they still work. You just have to be more enthusiastic about adhering to rule #2.

Next, we will look at how we use felting needles.

off topic update: Second trip out after surgery, this time to the renew my drivers license and health card(Glenn was driving). i seem to have forgotten my birthday this year. dose that mean i can stay the same age as last year?

Have fun and keep felting!