Der Flachs und seine Veredelung (1918)

Reel 1. 1. Intertitle: The harvest. The flax stalks are not cut, but picked. Image: Russians POWs pick flax stalks under the supervision of a German soldier; children gather bundles of flax, which are arranged in stooks with the help of a frame and tied together at the top by peasants; the field with the flax stooks. 2. Intertitle: The flax is delivered and weighed by the farmers. Image: Delivery of the flax by horsedrawn cart. 3. Intertitle: Large-scale operations. Delivery of the flax in railway wagons and storage in barns. Image: (agricultural) workers stand in an open railway wagon and transfer the bales of flax into a barn with pitchforks. 4. Intertitle: A bundle of flax straw before processing. Image: A woman with a bundle of flax straw. 5. Intertitle: Passing the flax straw through a ripple to strip away the seed pods from the stalk and untangle the flax straw. Image: Female workers with headscarves pull narrow bundles of flax straw through ripples; a worker does the same (in close-up). 6. Intertitle: Bundling the flax for retting. Image: The flax is bundled up and tied together. 7. Intertitle: Retting the flax leads to decomposition of the tissue within the stalk to enable mechanical separation of the fibres from the woody straw. 8. Intertitle: The oldest form of retting: dew retting, which leaves the retting process to the rain, dew and sun. Duration: on average 6-8 weeks. Image: peasant women lay flax out on the ground in a field for retting. 9. Intertitle: Water retting: the flax is retted in either cold or warm water. Image: Bundles of flax are stood up in a basin. 10. Intertitle: The bundles of retted flax are taken out of the water basin. Image: Loading the bundles of flax onto a horsedrawn cart. 11. Intertitle: The flax is stood up in „chapels“ for drying. 12. Intertitle: Retting the flax according to Dr. Schneider's canal retting system. 13. Intertitle: Placing the bundles for retting in the box. 14. Intertitle: The retting box is submerged in the canal. 15. Intertitle: - and weighted down with barrels filled with water until the flax is completely covered by water. 16. Intertitle: Diagram of the route that the retting boxes take through the canal. Image: animation. 17. Intertitle: After the retting box has made its way through the canal, the flax has been retted and is then drawn up from the bottom floor to the top floor (the drying room) for further processing. 18. Intertitle: The damp retted flax is taken out... Image: Loading the flax onto a small cart. 19: Intertitle: … and spread out in handfuls to dry on wattling carts. 20. Intertitle: The wattling carts with the damp flax are pushed into the drying machine. 21. Intertitle: After the flax has been dried for a few hours with humid, pre-heated air propelled by fans, the wattling carts are brought out from the other side of the drying machine. This method makes it possible to process flax day and night, regardless of the season. 22. Intertitle: The dried, retted flax is then broken in the breaking machine. Image: The flax is taken from the wattling cart and placed in the breaking machine. Reel 2. 1. Intertitle: The breaking of the flax, in which the stalk is broken. Image: Close-up of the breaking machine: the flax is placed in the machine and pulled in; and comes out at the other side. 2. Intertitle: A handful of broken flax. Image: A woman holds broken flax in her hands. 3. Intertitle: The scutching of the flax in order to strip the broken pieces of wood from the fibres. Image: Women working in separate cubicles. 4. Intertitle: Prepared by scutching. Short, tangled fibres are held tightly in a heckling comb. Image: A worker pulls the broken flax through the heckling comb. 5. Intertitle: Scutching the broken flax at scutching stands. (Wood knives located in the cover scrape along the bundles of fibre.) Image: A worker is busy at a scutching machine; several workers at scutching stands. 6. Intertitle: Scutching the flax at a different kind of scutching stand. Image: Women busy at scutching stands; close-up of the machine. 7. Intertitle: A handful of scutched flax. 8. Intertitle: Heckling. The further processing of the scutched flax in the heckle, in which the combing is done with ever finer groups of needles. Image: Processing the flax in the heckle, two women operate the machine; close-up. 9. Intertitle: The automatic heckle: the gripping of the bundle of flax by the holder is mechanically achieved. Image: A man is busy at the automatic heckle; the back of the heckle. 10. Intertitle: The change-over side. A technological triumph. Without the touch of a human hand, the holder is opened and the other end of the bundle of flax is grasped, in order that the side of the bundle that was previously in the holder may now also be combed out. 11. Intertitle: Heckling by hand after the heckling by machine is carried out in order to divide the fibres into the smallest bundles and to sort them according to fineness. Image: A woman heckling by hand, pulls the flax through a heckle. 12. Intertitle: The path from straw flax to heckle flax: straw flax, retted flax, broken flax, scutched flax, heckled flax. Image: The various stages of the flax. Reel 3. 1. Intertitle: The heckled flax is placed in the spreading machine in order first to be processed into bands of fibre. Image: Two women work at the spreading machine, laying the heckled flax on the machine; close-up of the spreading machine. 2. Intertitle: The bands next go through a system of stretching machines, making them ever finer and more even. 3. Intertitle: The path of the flax bands and the spreading machine up to the slubbing machine. Image: Flax bands becoming progressively finer. 4. Intertitle: The slubbing machine, that spins the narrowest band into rove. Image: The machine; thread spools. 5. Intertitle: The wet or fine spinning machine, which refines the rove and finally gives it the correct strength (thread number). Image: A woman is busy at the machine; close-up of the machine. 6. Intertitle: The waste product of the scutching process – known as tow – is processed. They first go into a mechanical shaker in order to shake out the fragments of wood. Image: Two men at the mechanical shaker; the tow is placed in the machine by one man; and comes out of the other end, a woman receives it. 7. Intertitle: The tow arrives at the tow carder, in which it is processed into strips of yarn; - these are further processed in the same way as the yarn made from the flax bundles. Image: A woman puts the tow into a machine. 8. Intertitle: The yarn-reeling machine, in which the spools are unreeled into skeins, which is necessary for the drying which follows it. Image: Two women at the yarn-reeling machine; one woman removes the skeins of thread. 9. Intertitle: Hanging the wet spun skeins of thread on frames at normal room temperature! 10. Intertitle: Drying the wet spun flax thread on steam-heated drying drums. 11. Intertitle: The skeins of thread are loosened for better drying on the drying machine. Image: Three men loosening the skeins of thread, placing the skeins on the drying machine; removing the dry skeins of thread. 12. Intertitle: Packing the flax thread for shipment to the weaving mill. Image: Packing the flax thread with a machine that compresses the thread. 13. Intertitle: The end.