THE BEGINING OF NYLON STRETCH YARNN

Abstract

From March 1938 to January 1945, i.e., during the war time, the Toyo Rayon Co. in Japan made, on a commercial scale, the modified rayon yarn named Lanayon (32'S/2) as wool substitute, which could be washed without loosing crimps and wool like appearance, and a subsidiary company still makes it. The processes highly twisted rayon yarn, heat set it with high pressure steam, untwisted it and plied it with a similar yarn.On receiving samples of nylon yarns from America several times since October 1938, the above mentioned processes were applied to some of them and nylon stretch yarns was obtained by research chemists of the Toyo Rayon Co.As a new product it was shown to the attendants to the technical sub-committee (polyamide group) of the Japan Synthetic Fibers Research Association, held on September 18, 1941 in Tokyo. At the meeting of the above mentioned association on November 24, 1941, the author gave a speech on the recent progress of the polyamide synthetic fibers, touching the new product as follows: “By applying the processes to make Lanayon with rayon to nylon, stronger, lighter and much more elastic yarn than wool was obtained.” (Research on Synthetic Fibers, Vol., 1 p. 728 and 840: Report of the Japan Synthetic Fibers Research Association published in 1942).According to the discussion on the bulk yarn (J. Text. Inst., Proceedings, 1956, 47, 397) “The stretch processes gave yarn with a high elasticity; their application to nylon was first mentioned in 1942.”Thus, as far as I know, the beginning of nylon stretch yarn was made in the Toyo Rayon Co. in Japan about a year earlier than in Europe.