The Mayer Engineering office, located in the heart of Paarl, produces large amounts of intricate mechanical designs. One of its recent designs includes plans for the development of a machine that will automate the process of wool removal from sheepskin.

The venture was requested by a factory in Cape Town that uses sheepskin for the manufacture of products like handbags and gloves. "The procedure that is currently used for the removal of sheep wool is to treat the sheepskins with a chemical solution. The solution is quite dangerous and workers have to protect their own skin by wearing rubber gloves, aprons and goggles during the manual process of rubbing off the wool," explains Werner Mayer, owner of Mayer Engineering.

There was a large degree of groundwork that took place before the design stage could commence. This consisted of three one-hour consultation sessions with the client in order to obtain further information to produce the drawings. This was necessary in order to establish what the machine was meant to do and what the full functionality of the mechanism would entail.

Once the machine use was determined, an investigation of production levels followed. The machine was expected to output the same amount of production as that of labourers, but would automate the process of separating wool from sheepskin."

I looked at the current output of labourers per hour and per shift and then compared this to the client's expectations. It was difficult to calculate how much time it would take to remove wool from sheepskin, because you are dealing with a natural product with a great deal of variation. This leads to a lot of guesswork because of the varying sizes of the sheepskin," says Mayer as he explains some of the complexities experienced.

Once the necessary information has been accumulated, the design of the mechanism begins. "I found that my greatest challenge was to develop the mechanical process, but fortunately the client had some ideas and this helped to shape the project.

"The machine is powered by electricity and comprises a series of wheels connected by two chains that run across them. A board is then mounted onto the chain, offering a surface where the skin can be transported to the various channels.

"The automated process removes the wool from the skin before the contents are deposited onto conveyers and thereafter into separate bins. The only manual labour that is required is the placement of the skin onto the board and the emptying of bins. The rest of the activity is completely automated," says Mayer.

He goes on to say that it would have been extremely time-consuming to work out the machine boards with the use of a drawing board. "With AllyCAD, I was able to work out the boards at various positions at exact angles and could measure the distance between points. I found that even fixed points with changing distances were measured with ease and the software is user friendly and produces accurate work."

Over a three-month period, Mayer had three to four one-hour discussions with the client, produced the drawings within a week and required a further week to build the sample machine.

For more information contact Yolanda Desai, Knowledge Base Software, 021 701 1850, yolanda@knowbase.co.za