Edmund Knecht

“ For the finishing of silk pieces the operations and machinery employed are similar in character to some of those used for cotton and worsteds. Most high-class silks require no further treatment other than simple damping and pressing after they leave the loom. Inferior qualities are frequently filled or back-filled with glue, sugar, gum tragacanth, dextrin, &c., after which they are dried, damped and given a light calender finish. Moiré or watered effects are produced by running two pieces face to face through a calender or by means of an embossing calender. ”

“ This felting of the wool is due to the peculiar structure of the fibre, the scales of which all protrude in one direction, so that the individual fibres can slip past each other in one direction more readily than in the opposite one and thus become more and more interlocked as the milling proceeds. ”

“ Beetling is a process by which a peculiar linen-like appearance and a leathery feel or handle are imparted to cotton fabrics, the process being also employed for improving the appearance of linen goods. For the best class of beetle finish, the pieces are first impregnated with sago starch and the other necessary ingredients (softening, &c.) and are dried on cylinders. They are then damped on a water mangle, and beamed on to the heavy iron bowl of the beetling machine. ”

“ Unions or fabrics consisting of a cotton warp with a worsted weft are in general treated like worsteds.
In the finishing of woollen pieces the most important operation is that of milling, which consists in subjecting the pieces to mechanical friction, usually in an alkaline medium (soap or soap and soda) but sometimes in an acid (sulphuric acid) medium, in order to bring about felting and consequent “fulling” of the fabric. ”

“ The most important finishing process for cotton yarn is “mercerizing” (q.v.) , by means of which a permanent silk-like gloss is obtained. The “polishing” of cotton yarn, by means of which a highly glazed product, similar in appearance to horsehair, is obtained, is effected by impregnating the yarn with a paste consisting essentially of starch, beeswax or paraffin wax and soap, and then subjecting the damp material to the action of revolving brushes until dry. ”

“ Shearing was in former times done by hand, by means of shears, but is to-day universally effected by means of a cutting device which works on the same principle as an ordinary lawn-mower, in which a number of spiral blades set on the surface of a rapidly revolving roller pass continuously over a straight fixed blade underneath, the roller being set so that the spiral blades just touch the fixed blade. ”

“ After the pieces have been milled down to the desired degree, they present an uneven and, undesirable appearance on the surface, the ends of many of the fibres which previously projected having been turned and thus become embedded in the body of the cloth. In order to bring these hairs to the surface again, the fabric is subjected to teasing or raising, an operation identical in principle with one which has already been noticed under the finishing of cotton. In place of the steel wire brushes it is the usual practice to employ teasels for the treatment of woollen goods. ”

“ Touching the brass roller is a brush roller b which revolves at a high speed, thus spraying the water, which it takes up continuously from the wet revolving brass roller in all directions, and consequently also against the piece which passes in a stretched condition over the top of the box, being drawn from the batch roller B, over scrimp rails S, and batched again on the other side on roller R. The level of the water in the trough is kept constant. ”

“ Silk yarn is subjected to various mechanical processes before weaving. The most important of these are stretching, shaking, lustreing and glossing. Stretching and shaking are simple operations the nature of which is sufficiently indicated by their names, and by these means the hanks are stretched to their original length and straightened out by hand or on a specially devised machine. ”

“ In the more modern machines there are two sets of raising rollers, of which each alternate one is caused to revolve in the direction followed by the piece, while the other is made to revolve in the opposite direction. ”

“ In crabbing the pieces are drawn at full breadth and under as much tension as they will stand through boiling water, and are wound or beamed on to a roller under the pressure of a superposed heavy iron roller, the operation being conducted two or three times as required. From the crabbing machine the pieces are wound on to a perforated shell or steel cylinder which is closed at one end. ”

“ The length of the piece that can be shorn in one operation will naturally depend upon the length of the blade, but in any case the process is necessarily intermittent, many operations being required before the whole piece is shorn. ”

“ The principle of the process depends upon the fact that at elevated temperatures moist wool becomes plastic, and then easily assumes the shape imparted to it by the great tension under which the pieces are wound. ”

“ The face of the fabric is waxed with beeswax by passing the piece under a revolving drum, on the surface of which bars of this material are fixed parallel to the axis. The bars just touch the surface of the fabric as it passes through the machine. The gloss is then obtained by brushing with circular brushes which run partly in the direction of the piece and partly diagonally. In the finishing of velvets, shearing and brushing are the most important operations. The same applies to sealskins and other long pile fabrics, but with these an additional operation, viz. ”

“ The pieces are fed on to one end of the machine in the damp state by hand and are then naturally slack. But before they have travelled many yards they become taut, the stretching increasing as they travel along. ”

“ In the more modern forms of milling machines the principle adopted is to draw the pieces in rope form, saturated with soap solution and sewn together end to end so as to form an endless band, between two or more rollers, on leaving which they are forced down a closed trough ending in an aperture the size of which can be varied, but which in any case is sufficiently small to cause a certain amount of force to be necessary to push the pieces through. A machine of this kind is shown in Fig. ”

“ The shape of the hammer-head causes the cloth to turn slowly in the cavity in which the milling takes place. Occasionally, the cloth is taken out, straightened, washed if necessary, and then returned to the stocks to undergo further treatment, the process being continued until the material is uniformly shrunk or milled to the desired degree. ”

“ The continuous press, which is used for certain classes of worsteds, but more especially for woollen goods, consists in principle of a polished steam-heated steel cylinder against which either one or two steam-heated chilled iron cheeks are set by means of levers and adjusting screws. The pieces to be pressed are drawn slowly between the cheeks and the bowl. A machine of the kind is shown in section in Fig. ”