Terry Towel | Manufacturing Process

Terry Towel, a pile fabric is known as towel worldwide. In terry towel loop piles are present on one or both side of the fabric. Terry fabrics are used in various fields because of their water absorption properties.

Different Parts of a Terry Towel

The parts mentioned on the above image are known in different names like

-Side Hem is named as Selvedge.

-Cross Hem is named as top and bottom hem.

-Borders are called as Dobby.

-Terry Bar is known as Cuff.

A wide variety of towel styles are available in the market. All the above towel parts may not be present in a particular towel.

Manufacturing of Terry Towel:

Terry towel weaving

Terry towel is one type of woven fabrics where during weaving of this fabric 2 beams are used. One beam for ground fabrication and other beam for loop formation. Top beam is responsible for loop formation by terry loom’s beat-up mechanism. Commercially 3 pick terry is most popular. 3 picks terry means after each 3 picks insertion full beat-up is made and one loop pile is formed of the fabric. See the following illustration of beat-up position.

Pile of the towel plays major role for a towel for its water absorbency and other properties. Loop length is decided by the quality, weight etc. as per requirements. Pile manufacturers use better quality yarn like combed, compact, hydro, zero twisted yarns.

Piles are made by different high value fibers like superior qualities of cotton suvin, giza, pima, bamboo, modal etc. to get better absorbency and lint properties. For ground yarn, comparatively coarser counts are used in OE and 2-ply option to give better strength and compactness in ground fabric. Both piles and ground yarns are prepared in the same manner of warping, sizing, and drawing-in.

Wet Processing of Terry Fabric

• Desizing
• Scouring
• Bleaching
• Dyeing
• Finishing

Dyeing Terry Towel Fabrics

Commonly used dyes:

• Reactive dyes

Commonly used machine:

• Winch, Jet/soft flow/overflow: Fabric in rope form
• Pad batch, Pad steam: Fabric in open-width form

Finishing Towel Fabrics

Chemical Finishing:

• Hydrophilic softeners
• Enzymatic softening
• Antimicrobial treatment (If no inherently antimicrobial fiber used)

Mechanical Finishing:

• Tumble drying: Gives softness, fullness, fluffiness
• Stentering:To straighten up fabric and impart dimensional stability

Cutting and Sewing

• Longitudinal cutting
• Longitudinal hemming
• Cross cutting
• Cross hemming

Basic Parameters of a Quality Terry Towel

• Weight & GSM: Weight and GSM should be same as required by customer. Every manufacturer has some template or software (ERPs) where towel manufacturers calculate everything likes pile’s height, density of picks and ends to meet requirement. This database or any software has been developed through some basic calculation.
• Softness/ Hand feel: It depends on properties of the yarn used in pile, finishing chemicals and too some extent on pile orientation.
• Pile Orientation: Totally depends on process line.
• Lint: Lint are basically protruding fibers present in a finished towel. It is measured by weight of accumulated fiber collected from washing machine and tumble drying machine during testing.
• Absorbency: Terry towel should be highly water absorbent.
• Dimensional Stability: How a towel is behaving after washing is fall under dimensional stability properties. Dimensional stability is measured by the residual shrinkage % in a finished towel.
• Other Parameters are strength, color fastness etc.