The Cellar - Oct 14, 2009: Rare Silk

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- - Oct 14, 2009: Rare Silk (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=21170)

Oct 14, 2009: Rare Silk

Look at this beautiful, 11ft by 4ft, rare silk textile, on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

http://cellar.org/2009/spidercloth1.jpg

It's not old, it's brand new, although it took a bunch of people 4 years to create.
It's rare because the silk came from these guys...

http://cellar.org/2009/spidercloth2.jpg

Each Golden Orb spider, in Madagascar, donated about 80ft of filament per 'milking' (my term), and it takes them a couple weeks to recover.

Quote:

Peers came up with the idea of weaving spider silk after learning about the French missionary Jacob Paul Camboué, who worked with spiders in Madagascar during the 1880s and 1890s. Camboué built a small, hand-driven machine to extract silk from up to 24 spiders at once, without harming them.

“Simon managed to build a replica of this 24-spider-silking machine that was used at the turn of the century,” said Nicholas Godley, who co-led the project with Peers. As an experiment, the pair collected an initial batch of about 20 spiders. “When we stuck them in the machine and started turning it, lo and behold, this beautiful gold-colored silk started coming out,” Godley said.

The textile weighs 2.6 pounds, and it takes about 14,000 spiders to produce 1oz of thread, which means... Oww, my head hurts.
But of course, some spiders were caught and 'milked' more than once, over the years.

Quote:

Unlike silk worms, which are easy to raise in captivity, spiders have a habit of chomping off each other’s heads when housed together.
To get as much silk as they needed, Godley and Peers began hiring dozens of spider handlers to collect wild arachnids and carefully harness them to the silk-extraction machine. “We had to find people who were willing to work with spiders,” Godley said, “because they bite.”

Oh, and they only produce silk during the rainy season, October to June.
Hey :idea:, the season is just starting, anybody want a job?

link

As well as beautiful, it is three times stronger than kevlar, and can stretch by 40%. Imagine the outfit you could make from that stuff; the ultimate spiderman suit.

Different link (AMNH)

Careful! That's bug abuse.

Spider abuse! Oh, the humanity! Call PETA! Call Hollywood!

Really that's the best use we could come up with for spider silk? Well I guess we could start outfitting our soldiers and policemen in lovely blankets. :headshake

Picture NSFA

(not safe for arachnophobes)

I wonder if those Golden Orb spiders, produce gold thread in other parts of the world?

HELL.
NO.

Don't want to look at that, touch the finished product, go near the spiders, or hav anything further to do with this whole affair. Good day!

I SAID GOOD DAY!

(shudder)

BTW, silk worms are pretty ugly, too. But at least they don't bite. ack! or, make that, eek!

"...French missionary Jacob Paul Camboué, who worked with spiders in Madagascar during the 1880s and 1890s."

Ah, the good old days, when missionaries worked for a living and invented neat stuff. That would be a good position to be in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slothboy (Post 601094)

HELL.
NO.

Don't want to look at that, touch the finished product, go near the spiders, or hav anything further to do with this whole affair. Good day!

I SAID GOOD DAY!

I snorted out loud!

I agree with Slothboy. Squash all those yucky little cannibals.

I sneer disdainfully at you spider haters.

Okay, you have some irrational fear of them, fine, but that is your problem and is best dealt with by you avoiding spiders.

Spiders are perfectly okay in their own right, perform many useful functions for the rest of the world (keeping flies down, eg) and, IMHO can be very beautiful and fascinating.

[/rant]

Quote:

Spiders are perfectly okay in their own right, perform many useful functions for the rest of the world (keeping flies down, eg) and, IMHO can be very beautiful and fascinating.

Yeah, but not in my house - because I squish the nasty bastards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jinx (Post 601173)

Yeah, but not in my house - because I squish the nasty bastards.

I have a treaty (that they don't always honor). If they stay out of the house and away from me, I don't squish 'em. If they wander into my territory, I unleash the deadly stomp on 'em.

And then I waterboard 'em for good measure.