Journal · 14 April 2026
A shade band that only the day grader sees is not a band. Here is a mill-floor way to log variation so the night notes and the lab slip can be read together.
A dye lot is not one colour. It is a sequence of rolls that left a bath, a range, or a jig in an order someone can still name. When a buyer later says “the sleeves are redder,” the mill often discovers that the day grader saw a drift and the night shift did not write it, or wrote it on a cigarette pack that never reached the lot folder.
The useful log is boring. Roll number, position in the lot, whether the piece was from the inside or the face, the light you used (window, north light-box, or the lamp over the table), and a mark against the approved cutting. “A bit warm” is not a mark. A letter on the mill’s own shade band, or a delta the spectrophotometer printed, is a mark. If you have no instrument, the band on a card you already use with that buyer is enough — provided the night shift has the same card, not a photocopy that has yellowed in a drawer.
In several Georgian finishing rooms the spectrophotometer print sits in the lab and the night comment sits with the supervisor. By Friday they are two stories. Put a copy of the print in the lot folder before the next shift. If the printer is in another building, a photograph of the print taped to the folder is ugly and better than a missing slip.
Averaging five rolls into one “OK” hides the two rolls that will become sleeves. When we draw a lot for a Plant Quality Review, we keep the rolls in the order they were finished. The meeting can then point at a place in the sequence — after a stop, after a chemical add, after a speed change — instead of arguing about whether the lot as a whole “looks fine.”
If your folder for a queried lot is only a delivery note, start the log on the next bath. The old lot will not grow a history it never had.
