Fabric sourcing contracts often use two industry acronyms that sound identical: PFD (Prepared for Dyeing) and RFD (Ready for Dyeing). In day-to-day mill trading, buyers and converters frequently treat them as interchangeable commercial synonyms for cloth that has undergone wet preparation.
However, letters on a purchase order do not guarantee a successful dye lot. Whether your vendor writes PFD or RFD, the acronym alone is not a technical specification. What matters to the dyehouse is whether spinning lubricants, sizing, and impurities are thoroughly removed, whether the ground is neutralized, and which lab thresholds govern the shipment.
What changes for the buyer
| PFD (Prepared for Dyeing) | RFD (Ready for Dyeing) | |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial meaning | Pretreated substrate prepared through wet-processing steps | Substrate ready to enter the dye bath or print line |
| Common trade usage | Emphasizes the preparation route (desizing, scouring, bleaching) | Emphasizes the incoming readiness state for coloration |
| Base construction | 100% polyester plain, twill, or dobby satin stripe | Identical base cloth; jacquard is outside this mill's weave |
| Fabric hand and surface | Clean, oil-free, wettable, free of sizing residues | Uniform, absorbent hand without chemical barrier |
| Contract width | Finished width: typically 150–315 cm (greige is 160–330 cm) | Finished width: typically 150–315 cm (greige is 160–330 cm) |
| Contract GSM | Finished weight: about 60–140 g/m² (greige is 55–120 g/m²) | Finished weight: about 60–140 g/m² (greige is 55–120 g/m²) |
| Order floor (MOQ) | Bleached white: 2,000 m per white program | Bleached white: 2,000 m; custom greige weave: 5,000 m |
| What must be confirmed | Scour/bleach route, whiteness, optical brighteners, residual limits | Dyehouse absorbency standard, target pH, residual oil limits |
Trading houses sometimes draw a theoretical line between PFD as the preparation process and RFD as the resulting lot condition. In practice, writing one abbreviation rather than the other will not prevent uneven color uptake if the chemical and physical criteria are omitted from the contract.
When PFD fits your order
Specify PFD when your program requires a scoured, desized, and uniformly bleached substrate intended for subsequent piece-dyeing or printing. On polyester home textiles, loom-state greige carries spinning preparations, weaving oils, and sizing agents that repel water and disperse dyes. PFD processing strips these contaminants and aligns dimensional stability.
If you are sourcing a prepared white ground for custom disperse printing or light pastel dyeing, request our bleached white route. Make sure your purchase order explicitly stipulates whether optical brightening agents (OBA) are permitted; an optical brightener added during bleaching can skew pastel shades or interfere with digital sublimation inks.
When RFD fits your order
Specify RFD when you need a contract guarantee that the cloth can be loaded directly into high-temperature, high-pressure jet dyeing machines or continuous dye ranges without intermediate wet processing.
This condition is critical for commission dyehouses working against strict turnaround windows. However, because different dyehouses operate under different water-drop penetration standards and residual chemical tolerances, you must supply your dyehouse's testing protocols. Never assume that a generic RFD stamp guarantees zero residual silicone, neutral pH, or uniform core absorbency.
Mill weaving and preparation scope
Weaverine operates as a China weaving mill originating from Zhejiang (Changxing), with manufacturing scaled at our Wuhe production base. Our weaving capacity is built around waterjet technology:
- Weave styles: Plain weave and twill weave for volume programs. Satin stripe constructions are woven in production using a dobby attachment on our waterjet looms. Jacquard weaving is not this mill's weave.
- Dimensional envelope: Loom-state greige widths range from 160 cm to 330 cm, yielding finished widths of 150 cm to 315 cm after wet processing and heat setting. Greige weights span 55–120 g/m², finishing at approximately 60–140 g/m².
- Commercial floors: Stock greige specifications carry no minimum order quantity. Custom weave constructions require 5,000 m. Prepared bleached white programs require 2,000 m per white specification, while solid piece dyeing requires 3,000 m per color. Other specialized finishes follow a 5,000 m floor.
Spec checklist: what to freeze on the PO
To eliminate ambiguity between buyer, mill, and dyehouse, paste these concrete parameters into your RFQ or purchase contract:
- Fiber content: 100% polyester woven base.
- Construction details: Weave type (plain, twill, or dobby satin stripe), yarn denier, and filament count.
- Dimensions: State finished width and finished GSM explicitly rather than greige figures.
- Preparation steps: Define whether the goods must be scoured, desized, bleached, or heat-set.
- Optical brightener (OBA): State "OBA allowed" or "strictly OBA-free" depending on the dye or print route.
- Whiteness target: State required CIE whiteness index (e.g., CIE 120+ for clean print grounds) if applicable.
- Wettability and absorbency: Define water-drop absorption time (typically under 3–5 seconds).
- Surface pH: Specify a neutral extraction range (typically 6.5–7.5).
- Residual oil limit: Define maximum ether/solvent extractable content (typically below 0.5%–1.0%).
For current loom availability, lab dips, or technical data sheets on prepared polyester, contact sales with your target finish and dyehouse standards.