VIRTUAL TOUR

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1. Incoming goods

The combed slivers of silk, wool, linen and other materials delivered here are temporarily stored in the high-bay warehouse after quality control has been carried out.
Yarns that are dyed by subcontractors also come back to the main factory here.

2. High bay warehouse

3. Pre-combing

Here the delivered raw material is unpacked and applied to the machines for initial cleaning.

4. Combing

Here the material runs through a comb for final cleaning. Special humidification systems produce 100% humidity to prevent static charges.

5. Preproduction

In order to homogenize the recombed fibers, they are parallelized and leveled in the preliminary plant.

Here the silk can be mixed with other natural fibers such as cashmere, wool or cotton, etc., which are then processed into high-quality mixed yarns.

The finished tapes with the correct weight are then placed on the flyer.

After the fibers have been mixed, the spun material is transported to the roving machine (flyer).

A thinner strip is created from the previously thick strip by pulling and twisting.

This production step is the preparation for the actual spinning and the roving is created here, which is already twisted a little but still allows further drafting.

6. Spinning mill (heart of the company)

The resulting end product has the following breathtaking parameters:

Thick yarn: 8m/1g

Fine yarn: 120m/1g

Finest yarn: 300m/1g

This is where the actual spinning of the prepared fibers (roving) takes place. We have ring spinning machines with long-staple drafting systems available for this. The attached roving is twisted and twisted in the drafting system to create a fine and stable thread.

Since we manufacture yarns with a fineness of Nm 2 (=2 m/1g) to Nm 300 (=300 m/1g), different machine types are used.

The spinning machines are equipped fully automatically. The full spin cops are placed on a waiting trolley by means of a conveyor belt and empty spin cops are placed on the machine.

For our finest yarn, the roving is spun into a fine silk thread with a 50-fold draft and over 950 twists per meter. The latest machine was integrated in October 2021 after new installations in 2006, 2007 and 2009. The oldest spinning machines are over 50 years old. Additional installations make it possible to produce fancy yarns (with thick and thin places).

7. Winding

The finished yarn is rewound here.

The yarn has a length of 300 km/1 kg

A quality check is carried out using sensors.

Nm deviations and foreign fibers are recorded and automatically cut out and documented depending on the programmed cleaning level. The yarn is then reassembled by splicing (knot-free).

This process guarantees the highest yarn quality in order to meet the high quality demands of our customers.

8. Twisting

Most of the single yarns from the spinning mill are twisted in the next step. Two or three threads are twisted together. After the thread has been given the Z twist direction during spinning, the two threads together get an S twist.

A twist gives the yarn increased tear and abrasion resistance. In the area of thinner yarns, we work with the two-stage twisting process. First, the threads are folded (= wound together) and slightly pre-twisted (= pre-twist).

The correct number of turns per meter is only twisted in the second stage (= final twisting)

9. Refinement of the yarn (singeing, steamer and final packaging)

For the singeing process, the thread runs past a red-hot piece of metal, which burns off protruding fibers and nubs. This makes the yarn smoother and shinier.

All yarns are steamed after spinning and after twisting to calm them down (prevents untwisting and kinking).

Depending on the customer's order, the yarns are finally laid on strands and fixed with 3 threads. The yarns can then also be dyed in this way. Depending on the situation, the yarns then come back to us in order to wind them back onto cones and, if necessary, to paraffin them for knitting.

Here the circle closes and the yarns and threads are returned to the warehouse or to the packing station for dispatch all over the world.

10. Packaging and shipping

Test laboratory

In our own test laboratory, equipped with the latest technology, the quality of the raw materials and the products is continuously checked after every step. In this way, the quality of the products known for Swiss Mountain Silk is continuously achieved and guaranteed at the highest level.