scutching

thumb|upright|A person scutching flax thumb|Threshing, retting and dressing flax at the Roscheider Hof Open Air Museum

Scutching is a step in the processing of cotton or the dressing of flax or hemp in preparation for spinning. The scutching process separates the impurities from the raw material, such as the seeds from raw cotton or the straw and woody stem from flax fibers. Scutching can be done by hand or by a machine known as a scutcher. Hand scutching of flax is done with a wooden scutching knife and a small iron scraper. The end products of scutching flax are the long finer flax fibers called line, short coarser fibers called tow, and waste woody matter called shives.