Choosing Brush Wheel Bristle for a Stenter Rail

What the Brush Wheel Actually Does

The brush wheel presses the fabric selvedge down onto the pins as the cloth enters the rail. That is its entire job, and it is the reason a soft or worn wheel costs a mill more than the wheel is worth.

If the bristles are worn, too soft, or the wrong grade for the fabric, the selvedge is never fully pushed onto the pins. The edge then lets go somewhere inside the chamber, which shows up as width loss and a frayed selvedge rather than as an obvious brush fault.

The Six Bristle Types

PBT bristle is the high temperature grade. In the hottest positions on a heat setting range it is the only choice that holds its stiffness.

Brown pig hair and black pig hair are the traditional natural grades, softer than PBT and kinder to delicate goods. Hard hair set with glue gives the firmest pressure and is the grade for heavy fabrics that need a positive push onto the pins. Goat hair and horse hair are the softest options, for the most delicate knits.

Pick on two things: how heavy the fabric is and how hot the position runs. Heavy fabric in a hot position takes PBT or hard hair with glue. Light delicate goods in a cooler position take goat or horse hair.

Measure Body Width as Well as Diameter

Brush wheel sizes trip people up because several of them share a diameter and differ only in body width, and those wheels do not swap.

Monforts big is 220 x 167 mm and Bruckner big is 220 x 158 mm. Same diameter, 9 mm apart on the body. Artos is 205 x 145 mm and the F2 size is 205 x 157 mm, same diameter again, 12 mm apart. Monforts small is 180 x 22 mm and ACC small is 180 x 70 mm, a 48 mm difference on the same diameter. Always measure both.

Use Wheel Colour as a Shelf Code

Wheel bodies are moulded in red, green and purple. The colour means nothing mechanically, and that is exactly what makes it useful.

Mills that run two or three bristle grades across a mixed machine park use the body colour to tell them apart on the shelf, so a storeman reaching for a wheel at two in the morning does not have to read a label. Tell us which colour you want for which grade and we keep it consistent across reorders.

Change Them in Sets

Brush wheels are packed in matched sets from one production batch so bristle density is the same across the machine. Change them as a set at the annual service.

A single new wheel among worn ones presses harder than its neighbours, which puts uneven pressure along the pin row. That is a subtle fault and a slow one to find.