|
The Truth About Warp Knits
Ever since we launched our manufacturing website in 2010, we've been getting emails and calls from visitors to the site for one or two rolls of fabric. Back in the heyday of the warp knit business in the United States, it was not unusual to receive orders for multiple hundreds of thousands of yards. Times have certainly changed, and we have too, so that we can accommodate this changing market.
Despite the fact that the United States textile industry output, employment and revenue has geometrically shrunken, there remains a stubborn, die-hard group of manufacturers and users who have learned and employed every trick in the book to survive. There are some who bemoan the fate of the industry while there are others who extoll the latest news of a 'resurgence' or return from off-shore sourcing. Neither outlook is practical and we note that the "survivors" do not indulge in fancy.
If you are reading this and have found this website, you have indeed made a link with another survivor. Browse our product line and you will find a wide variety of warp knit constructions available by the roll where the words 'minimum dye lot' or in todays' jargon, MOQ, are banned. Why? Because a shrunken customer base needs a shrunken supplier. We need each other to survive for the game may change again...
Remember as you browse some of the production realities that made warp knits available and economically viable only on a large scale:
- 14 foot long, 15,000 lb knitting machines costing $100,000 or more that contain some 25,000 knitting elements moving at blurring speeds to produce 500 lbs (2000 yards) or more of greige fabric per shift per machine.
- 5000 lbs or more of yarn warped into 2 or more "sets" of yarn containing each 4000 or more individual ends of yarn wrapped around metal spools weighing 300 lbs.
- Thousands of ends of yarn threaded by human hand perfectly in line without error onto those machines.
- Rooms of rows of these knitting machines, from 30 or 40 for a small mill to hundreds for a large mill running 3 shifts per day, 5, 6 or 7 days per week producing anywhere from 300,000 lbs to 750,000 lbs per week of fabric. Overhead cranes and human backs loading these huge machines, doffing these large rolls without scuffs or grease or dirt.
- Training programs for people which lasted for months. Lifetime careers for people who could thread and knit by "feel" long after their eyesight gave out.
- Warping lines of 1340 ends of yarn being wound onto huge spools, pulled out of 150' creels loaded with 10,000 lbs or more of yarn at startup, running for hours and sometimes days without a stop or an end break to produce the best quality fabric possible.
- Immense dyehouses running with 100' frames running at 40, 50 or 60 yards per minute.
- Giant dye machines with 4000 lb capacities.
- Huge quality control laboratories with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of testing equipment
- Tractor trailers loaded with 40,000 lbs of goods bound for sewing factories with hundreds of employees working 3 shifts per day.
- Rooms full of salespeople, executives, secretaries, clerks, technicians, accountants, screaming at each other, pushing for delivery, searching for the latest product and the million yard order.
We may not be able to offer fabric by the roll forever because we've seen the future. But for the time being, please consider us a resource.
Right here, you can buy online, tricot, simplex and spacer fabrics, Made in the U.S.A. or Made in the U.S.A. from imported yarn.
Claude Simon
President
Veratex, Inc.
P.S. Please excuse our website if it appears "amateurish". There is no budget for IT in the textile business. We do it ourselves. But when it comes to making warp knits, trust me, we are pros.
|
