Material State
Agricultural raw materials undergo mechanical processing to isolate the long spun-ready strands from the woody outer stem of the plant. The resulting scutched flax fibre represents the cleaned, long-line fibre bundles obtained after the crushing and beating steps of the scutching mill. Import houses in spinning hubs buy this raw material in compressed bales for processing into fine wet-spun linen yarns.
This technical classification does not include short, tangled fibres, which are separated and sold as flax tow for coarse yarn spinning or paper manufacturing.
Mechanical Separation
Fibre extraction begins with the crushing of retted flax straw between fluted rollers to break the brittle wooden core into small pieces. In the production of scutched flax fibre, rotating metal blades then scrape the broken straw to remove the woody fragments, which are known as shives. This beating action is carefully calibrated to clean the long bast fibres without breaking or tearing the delicate cellulose bundles.
Industrial Grading
Weighed bundles of the cleaned long-line fibre are sorted by hand based on colour, strength and softness before being baled for shipment. This manual grading determines the raw material cost and the eventual yarn count that the spinning mill can achieve.
