Intermediate Carrier
Cylindrical wooden or plastic reels hold the drafted flax fibres after they have been drawn into a loose strand but before they are spun into fine yarn. These packages are known as roving bobbins, and they are transferred directly from the roving frames to the ring spinning machines. This stage represents the final preparatory step in the flax spinning process where the fibres still possess very low twist and must be handled with care to prevent false drafting.
If the packages are wound too tightly, the strand can break during unwinding, which disrupts the spinning efficiency of the entire mill line.
Material Handling
Spinning mills organise these reels by colour-coded caps to ensure different fibre grades are not mixed on the production floor. When handling roving bobbins, workers place them in designated transport trolleys to protect the delicate strands from abrasion. This physical separation prevents contamination between organic flax strands and conventional cotton fibres processed in adjacent halls.
Spinning Feed
Each reel feeds a single spindle on the ring spinning frame where the roving is drafted and twisted. Once empty, the roving bobbins are returned to the flyer frames to be refilled with freshly drafted sliver. This continuous cycle demands a large inventory of matching reels to keep the spinning frames running at full capacity.
