Bolt (cloth)

A bolt is a piece of cloth woven on a loom or created by a knitting machine, as it is processed, stored and/or marketed. Consequently, its dimensions are highly variable – flexible and dependent upon the manufacturing, machinery, quantity, size, thickness and quality of the product. It is a unit used in manufacturing, transport and inventory. It is also used as a descriptor for wallpaper, which uses different fabrication machinery. Being encompassing, it is by its nature a generic and ambiguous term of convenience and context, used to describe fabric and wallpaper.

In modern production
Textile manufacturing is about converting fiber into yarn, yarn into fabric, and finally, the fabric into clothing and other useful products. At every stage, production activity is managed by unique batches. When it comes to fabric, a set of bolts or rolls forms a batch, representing the production.

Manufacturing
The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns the yarn into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. and knitting is another method of cloth manufacturing.

Boltsare the rolls of cloth manufactured by a loom or knitting machine, which moves through subsequent processes of textile finishing.

Loom
Looms are equipped with devices that can measure the length of the bolt during manufacturing on the machine itself.

Packing and trading
Cloth merchant were marking the end of bolts with notations. This practice is continued in the industry to avoid mixing.

Garment manufacturing
After fabric inspection, the bolts are layered manually or fabric-spreading machines for relaxing and cutting with patterns.

For more information, see Pattern; Ready-made garment

Unit
The length of a bolt varied according to the type of material measured. The length is usually either 40 or, but varies depending on the fabric being referred to; for example, a bolt of canvas is traditionally 39 yards.

The width of a bolt is usually 45 or, but widths may include 35-36 in, 39 in, 41 in, 44-45 in, 50 in, 52-54 in, 58-60 in and 66 in, 72 in, 96 in, and 108 in. For more on breadths of bolts, see narrow cloth.

The word has been long-lived. For example, Herman Melville used it casually in Moby-Dick. It is also the standard linear measurement of canvas for use at sea: 39 yard.