drawing

drawing, in yarn manufacture, process of attenuating the loose assemblage of fibres called sliver (q.v.) by passing it through a series of rollers, thus straightening the individual fibres and making them more parallel. Each pair of rollers spins faster than the previous one.

Drawing reduces a soft mass of fibre to a firm uniform strand of usable size. In the production of man-made fibres, drawing is a stretching process applied to fibres in the plastic state, increasing orientation and reducing size.