Furnishings experiment
Here is an experiment you can try at home. The excercise is based on a British Standards test.
How much will a material sample run?
You will need :
- 3cm x 5cm sample of white wool
- 3cm x 5cm sample of white cotton
- 3cm x 5cm sample of test material
- 1 cup and saucer
- needle and thread.
Method:
Thoroughly wet the materials - but don't immerse them in a pool of water. Place on a saucer and put a cup or a saucer on top to keep them pressed down for 16 hours.
Results
Compare the wool and cotton samples with a grey scale. The grey scale is a series of 5 depth of shade steps which go from white to black.
This is only an example of what a grey scale looks like. You can find out what a real grey scale is by looking at the television test card so set the video. Or your school could order a set from BSI customer services department.
The scale is used to compare the depth of shade in the two control pieces of material i.e. how much dye has run out of the sample and on to the controls.
Other scales of colours have been tried i.e. a red scale, a yellow scale etc. However, this was found to be impractical as there are thousands of different colour variations, so the grey scale was settled on.
Conclusion
Some things to think about:
- How could this test be used in the textiles industry?
- Is this an accurate test?