Exploring the potential of wool

Jonas Oppedal

Wool fibres have generally been a sought after material, but since the rise of the synthetic fibres, the quality demand has become quite high. Therefore rendering vast amounts of coarse wool fibres obsolete, because of the volume, this wool has become a waste problem. By minimizing the waste and finding new other suitable uses which can contribute to giving a value to otherwise worthless wool.

This is a material research project on the self binding properties of the wool fibres, also known as felt or felting. Through testing and exploration, both building on the traditional craft parallel with the untested, newly developed methods. The felting process has for as long as I can tell, not been tested to its extremes. The possibility of utilizing wool fibres’ ability to both mechanically and molecularly

bond to itself is unexplored terrain. The project shows promising results for the possible uses for wool felted pieces for uses in furniture, and could be a good candidate for replacing foam rubber and other structural upholstery components in furniture. Using the developed felting technique in other applications should also be explored further.