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I started off by mixing the perm solution with the activator solution following Ogilve's directions. The solution immediately became warm. I then soaked 1 piece of roving in water, and 2 pieces of roving in permanent solution. The roving soaked in permanent solution became slippery and "rubbery" feeling immediately. I then took the roving out of the solution and twisted it, tying knots at the ends.
I attempted to stretch it by suspending it from a hook by one end and weighting it with a catfood can from the other end. This was problematic, because the roving wanted to untwist, and the cans did not seem to provide sufficient weight to apply enough force.
So I then detached the cans and satisfied the stretching force by grasping both ends of the roving and pulling to stretch. Roving 1 was stretched approx 6 minutes, Roving 2 was stretched approx 12 minutes. The control roving was stretched 6 minutes. (this makes a great workout for your upper arms in case you can't make it to the gym...) I then deactivated the perm solution with the deactivator solution included in the kit. and rinsed each roving in copious amounts of water. The rovings were spread out to dry on a towel overnight. The next day I examined the three rovings to see if any difference had been made. The two different time periods of the perm solution roving appeared identical, however they did differ from the water only control roving. The perm solution rovings were wispier, straighter and felt slightly "cobwebby".
I tried drafting from the end of each roving, all drafted easily, the permed roving drafted smoothly even though it felt sort of cobwebby. I photographed the ends of the rovings in macro mode to see if any difference could be determined between the permed roving and the water only control roving. As you can see in the image below, the treated roving fibers were somewhat straighter and did not fan out as much as the regular roving.
I spun a sample of the different rovings to see if there was any difference in the way the rovings spun up. The perm treated roving spun thinner and denser than the regular roving, however there was no way to control for inconsistencies in spinning since it was spun by me, a mere human... Conclusions? Well, first of all, I haven't touched the real Optim so I can't compare my version to the commercial version. However judging by the descriptions (like cashmere) and the photographs I've seen, I don't think I succeeded in getting mine as fine as commercial Optim. I did, however, change the texture of the wool and achieved an easy-to-spin fine thread from the roving which was denser and less hairy than the regular roving. I don't think I would recommend this as an alternative to purchasing commercial Optim, as it's rather expensive, smelly and time consuming. In analysing why mine did not come out as wonderful as commercial Optim, I can offer these possibilities...
If I were to try this again, I would try using a different perm kit or using sodium bisulfite which is what was cited by the Australian Synchrotron website as the reducing agent. I would also look for a more uniform way to apply mechanical force, perhaps one which could be precisely controlled in increments... Well... on to the next experiment!
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