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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Cotton Ginning Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #161204
Title: EVALUATION OF SELECTED GIN SAW TOOTH DESIGNS

Author
item Hughs, Sidney
item McAlister Iii, David

Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/9/2004
Publication Date: 6/1/2004
Citation: Hughs, S.E., McAlister III, D.D. 2004. Evaluation of selected gin saw tooth designs. In: Proceedidngs of the National Cotton Council. 2004 Beltwide Cotton Conferences, January 5-9, 2004, San Antonio, Texas. 2004 CDROM. p. 969-972.

Interpretive Summary: The use of metal disks with machined "teeth" around their circumference was one of the major early innovations in cotton ginning in the U.S. There have been many tooth designs tried over the years which have slowly evolved into what is currently used in the industry. There are several current manufacturers of gin saws whose tooth designs vary somewhat in size and shape. There has never been a scientific evaluation of saw tooth design related to ginning performance and fiber quality. A preliminary comparison of several different manufacturers' gin saws was due. This comparison has shown that there are statistically significant differences between saws in both ginning rate and in fiber length and length uniformity parameters. These results indicate that further work should be done to maximize gin saw tooth design.

Technical Abstract: Toothed saws have been used to separate cotton fiber from the seed for over 200 years. There have been many saw tooth designs developed over the years. Most of these designs were developed by trial and error. A complete and scientific analysis of tooth design has never been done. It is not known whether the optimum saw tooth design has been found, particularly for modern upland varieties. Initial laboratory ginning evaluations of some modern gin saw teeth has shown differences between designs in both ginning rate and average fiber length and length unformity measurements. Further work remains to be done, both in the ginning laboratory and the textile mill, to document and explain these differences, and to then optimize the gin saw tooth design.