Bale opener

The bale opener - sometimes called a wolf - is a machine for loosening fiber clumps from bales. In the outworks of a spinning mill , the bale opener forms the first link in a long chain of processing steps when fibers of natural or synthetic origin are to be processed into yarn .

The bale opener roughly loosens the fibers from each other before they are cleaned by machine.

The fibers are packed in bales and transported around the globe because this packaging is very tight and the place of production or harvest is rarely close to a spinning mill. Staple fibers only , i.e. H. not infinitely long fibers, are delivered in bales.

There are different types of bale openers. The most common are machines in which the bales are placed close to each other and one arm of the machine slowly moves over them while it loosens and sucks off individual lumps of fiber. Since several bales are set up next to each other, the fiber clumps from different bales are already mixed here. This later increases the evenness in the yarn.