Harvesting silk manually - GIF

**Altair** · Jun 4, 2020, 07:13 PM

Harvesting silk manually.

Previously:

Wool carding tool from the 1940s - GIF
Making silk thread from cocoons - GIF
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...461#post135645

**neilbourjaily** · Jun 6, 2020, 01:57 PM

It'd be interesting to know the pH of the liquid.

**Elizabeth Greene** · Jun 6, 2020, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by neilbourjaily

It'd be interesting to know the pH of the liquid.

My understanding is it is just water. The cocoons are boiled to loosen them and kill the pupa before this step.

**marksbug** · Jun 7, 2020, 10:04 AM

why kill the pupals?

**Elizabeth Greene** · Jun 7, 2020, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by marksbug

why kill the pupals?

Left alive, they will gnaw through the silk and emerge as moths. This shortens the silk fibers and discolors them.

There are some karma/eco-conscious silk producers that don't kill the moths. They wait for them to emerge and then make products from the lower quality silk.

**marksbug** · Jun 7, 2020, 03:45 PM

oh...so they cant just remove the pupa live then harvest before the dammage is done.

**greyhoundollie** · Jun 9, 2020, 07:51 PM

At my wife's home it Thailand they take the live silk and pupa and drop it in hot water to kill it and then start unwinding the little bundle of silk by pulling a little loop of it and winding it around a spindle. It floats in the hot water and unwinds I don't think it unwinds completely and the in the end have to remove the dead worm from the remainder of the bundle. As I remember they maybe unwinding 4-5-6 bundles at the same time onto the same spindle. I am not sure what happens after that. I usually go out and pick mulberry leaves to feed more silk worms at that point.