Comparative Study between Slasher or Sheet Denim and Rope Denim

Denim is one of the most important RMG products made from the colored warp and white weft. The warp is colored before sizing in the preparatory processes. There are mainly two important routes of preparatory processes for producing the weaver’s beams e.g. (i) Slasher or sheet denim and (ii) Rope denim. After the production of the weaver's beam, the weaving is the same as usual. It is widely believed that the two routes of making the weaver beam attributes many differences in the ultimate fabric. The work reported in the paper is an analytical comparison of the impact of the two routes on weaving and fabric characteristics. The study was conducted in a reputed denim manufacturing industry located in Dhaka Bangladesh having both slasher and rope denim facilities. It was revealed that in the case of rope the elongation or stretching of warp yarn is more in rope dyeing than that occurs in a slasher. Regarding the method of spinning, it was observed that the elongation of the ring-spun yarns was more than that of open-end spun yarns. It was also observed that the higher the set length the higher was elongation or stretching of the warp yarns. The single warp yarn tension recorded on the loom was found to vary too much for the slasher beam than that obtained from the rope beam. The warp breakage in the loom is more in the slasher beam than that in the rope beam. Due to more breakage in the loom, the fabric quality of slasher beams is slightly inferior to that of rope. The production capacity of rope is almost double or more than that of slashers. The dyeing and washing characteristics of rope denim fabrics are better than that of slasher, which was due to the greater capacity of the dye boxes and dyeing in rope form. In the cases of all other fabric characteristics too, the rope denim is somewhat better than slasher denim. The consumption of water and utilities steam supply, air compressor, etc. are much higher for rope arrangement than the sheet. It seems that the differences are not much significant except dyeing characteristics.