“ When the machine is in operation the whole lower portion, from the tube down, revolves, either to the right or left as the goods require, and thus puts the twist into the rope. This twist being opposite, always, to that of the strands, the natural tendency of the latter as they are laid together would be to loosen up. To regulate this, each flyer is made to revolve on its own axis—in a direction opposite to the general direction of the machine. Each reel revolves also on its axis to feed out the strand—the effect of the changing load being met as before by a friction attachment. ”

“ Ancient, Mediæval and Tribal Rope-Making How many people have ever given a thought to the question of where rope comes from and how it is made, or realize what a variety of uses it is put to, and how dependent we are upon it in many of the everyday affairs of life? ”

“ So highly perfected is the apparatus that by machine work entirely66 the separate hanks of fiber are combed and elongated into a soft, continuous sliver of any size desired and of convenient length, glossy in appearance, perfectly clean, and with each fiber lying as nearly as possible in the straight position which gives it maximum strength. These operations, in which the entire character of the comparatively short vegetable fiber changes seemingly, are wholly a development of modern rope-making, since in the days of hand spinning no sliver was necessary. ”

“ In the case of a common right-laid rope, the forming twist is left hand. A change to right hand can be made simply by shifting clutches. The amount of turn or twist depends on the diameter of the drum, which is adjustable.
Behind the machine follows a man who swings out the stakes, placed at intervals along the walk, and throws the strands over them. When the process is completed the strands are cut away at either end and transferred to the laying ground, the stakes being pushed back to allow the return of the forming machine for another trip. ”

“ Forming and Laying of Ropes and Cables—Ropewalk Method Before taking up the strictly modern machines so largely used now in the final processes of rope-making—the forming of strands, laying of common ropes and closing of cable-laid goods—we shall describe the ropewalk method of performing these operations as it is practised today.
For making tarred goods in all but the smaller sizes the walk has certain advantages not afforded by more advanced methods. It also provides efficient equipment for turning out the largest ropes, which would otherwise require special machinery. ”

“ Fiber is also imported from Russia, from Italy, and from New Zealand, but we wish to speak now of the material which, next to Manila, is most used in hard-fiber cordage—Sisal—and which is secured from one of our nearer neighbors. This fiber is obtained from the leaves of a cactus-like plant belonging to the Agave family. While varieties of this plant grow in many parts of the world, it is cultivated most extensively in Mexico, the state of Yucatan being the chief center of production and Merida the capital of the state the principal market. ”

“ The native Peruvians were good rope-makers, using a substance known as “totora,” as well as many other materials. The Island tribes of the South Seas, expert in making rope, are favored with some very good materials for its manufacture, obtained from the leaves of various palms and plantains, from the fiber of the cocoanut, etc.
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As, at the present day, the shipping and fishing industries are among the principal users of cordage, so it has been among all tribes and nations from earliest times. ”

“ Manila Fiber In any manufacturing enterprise the question of raw materials is one of the highest importance. No manufacturer can become extensively successful without an intimate knowledge of the material entering into his product. He must be an expert judge of its quality to be able to determine for himself the exact value of what is offered him and its adaptability for his particular purposes ”

“ A rope expert once said, “Any manufacturer can make rope—it is a simple operation; but very few can make good rope because few are willing to devote the necessary amount of pains to each of the little operations in the process.” ”

“ The Philippines have a monopoly of this very important plant, as it has never been successfully cultivated elsewhere. So it will be seen at the start that the user of Manila hemp is dependent entirely upon our foreign possessions in the far East for his supply. Like most monopolists, the Filipino is not particularly susceptible to the wishes of his customers, and the procuring of hemp produced and prepared in the way to make it most valuable for rope-making is attended with some difficulty. ”

“ As already explained, the laying-machine is used in the same way when three ropes are made into a cable. When a four-strand rope is to be turned out the machine89 has four strand-reels. If the strands are to be laid around a heart rope, as in transmission goods, the heart feeds directly into the twist tube from a smaller reel placed on the top-piece previously mentioned.
All the foregoing machines are equipped with ingenious devices for measuring the strand or rope as it is made, so that the attendant can tell instantly from the gauge how many feet have been run. ”

“ In starting a field of plants the suckers or hijos are set out in rows, and cultivation is carried on once or twice a year to keep down the weeds. The appearance of the fields of Sisal and of the growing and matured plants may be seen from our illustrations. When the plant has been growing about five years some of the long, sword-like leaves will be ready to cut, those around the base of the plant maturing first. The time for cutting is indicated by the leaves assuming a nearly horizontal position instead of the more upright one of the younger leaves, at which stage the fiber is at its best. ”

“ By using a smooth-edged knife and putting considerable pressure upon it during the operation, a fiber is secured of high strength and good color. However, this means strenuous work on the part of the operator, and our brown fellow-citizen, like many of his white brethren, is averse to tiring his back; consequently the bulk of the fiber put upon the market is cleaned under30 knives with rough edges and loosely held against the material. This makes the workman’s task easier and enables him to turn out a larger product, but of an inferior quality. ”

“ The resulting tendency of the strands to untwist is counteracted, partly by a left-hand revolution of the foreturn spindles, and partly by the presence of the “hard” or surplus twist just described.
As the top truck is forced ahead by the twisting process, the rope-maker preserves a correct lay in the rope by means of greater or less leverage on the “tails”—the loose ropes shown in our picture. The stakes on which the strands rest are removed one by one to allow the top truck to pass and are then replaced to support the rope until the laying is finished and the reeling in of the rope begun. ”

“ The steadily increasing demand for our products and our large scale of production warrant our buying yearly more Manila hemp than any other single manufacturer—more than many combined. Our purchases are governed, furthermore, by the knowledge gained through more than ninety years’ experience with the fiber markets and rope-making. ”

“ Our experts have determined through long experience the amount of oil that should be used to best serve the interests of both manufacturer and buyer, and have perfected a process which insures a perfect distribution over all the fibers, while frequent tests on each machine, in which definite quantities of fiber are weighed before and after oiling, prevent any excess. ”

“ Binder twine is always given what is known as a right-hand twist, but rope yarns must, for certain kinds of rope, be given a left-hand twist. This is accomplished75 by reversing the direction of the capstans. The flyer carries four grooved wheels—two for the right, the others for the left-hand yarn—and by these the yarn is guided from the capstans to the revolving bobbin.
The spinning room, with its hundreds of flyers, each running in the neighborhood of 1,500 revolutions a minute, speaks eloquently of the years’ changes. ”

“ The Sisal or heniquen plant of Yucatan has been used for its fiber for many centuries, but, as we have stated, the present enormous development of the industry dates back but comparatively few years, during which time great progress has been made in putting it upon a highly practical basis as regards both the cultivation of the plant and the preparation of the fiber. Labor-saving machinery is used in place of the old hand methods for extracting the fiber ”

“ The advent and development of the self-binding reaper have opened a veritable gold mine for the Mexican Sisal growers, and a large proportion of the more than 300,000,000 pounds of Sisal annually imported to this country eventually finds its way to the wheat fields, not only of our own great West, but of all the world’s grain-raising countries.
A fiber so largely used can hardly help being a factor in the markets, and some account of its production should be of interest. ”

“ Tar-kiln burning is conducted so far out in the country and in such a desultory fashion that few people have the opportunity to become acquainted with the process. A brief description may, therefore, be of interest. Only dead wood is used, as the green tree does not yield the quality or quantity of tar necessary to make the work profitable. Among the tar-makers the material is known as fat lightwood, possibly from the fact that it ignites easily and burns rapidly. In weight and color it is anything but a light wood. ”

“ The workman in our picture is Johnny Moores, an old-time expert hand-spinner, who could walk off23 backward from the wheel with his wad of hemp, spinning with each hand a thread as fine and even as could be asked for. In the photograph, in order to show the process more clearly, one large yarn is being spun.
The large wheel, usually turned by a boy, is used to convey power to the “whirls” or small spindles carrying hooks upon which the fiber is fastened. ”

“ Preparation of Fiber for Spinning—Formation of “Sliver” The opening room where the fiber is made ready for the preparation machinery is a reminder of the days when all rope-making processes were hand work. The bales are first opened up. In the case of Manila this means cutting away the straw matting put on to protect the fiber in shipment. Then the hanks which are packed in various ways—sometimes doubled, sometimes twisted—are taken out and straightened and the band at the end of each hank removed. ”

“ The mechanism performs its work so accurately that at first glance the man feeding the fiber into the machine and all the other men, busy about their various duties, would appear to be playing very minor parts in modern rope-making. In reality, expert workmanship and watchfulness are very important factors. Good rope depends no more upon scientific machine processes than upon ceaseless attention to the little details. ”

“ Spinning of Rope Yarn and Binder Twine Hand spinning, as practiced in the early days of the Plymouth Cordage Company, yielded a remarkably good rope yarn, but large production was very expensive and laborious. The length of the spinning grounds, which with the buildings protecting them were known as the ropewalk, determined the length yarn that could be spun. Hand and water power had to suffice, and even the best spinner could make but two yarns at a time. ”

“ Other Fibers While the fibers we have already discussed—Manila and Sisal—comprise by far the greater part of the raw material of cordage, we wish to mention in this chapter a fiber which, while now of comparatively slight importance, has the interesting feature of being a home product, and the cultivation of which at one time formed an industry of considerable magnitude in this country. ”

“ The people who lived on islands or the shores of large bodies of water, and who thus naturally became fishermen, have been the larger users of ropes and lines, and we find they always have been capable of producing a wide variety of fishing lines and nets of excellent construction, capable of capturing all sorts of fish, from the smallest brook trout to the huge sturgeon or halibut. ”

“ But let us suppose for a moment that the world were suddenly deprived of its supply of this very commonplace material, and of its smaller relatives, cords and twine. We should then begin to realize the importance of a seemingly unimportant thing, and to appreciate the difficulty in getting along without it. ”

“ At this point hard fibers—Manila, Sisal and New Zealand—are usually oiled to soften them and to make them more workable for the operations that follow. The oil, furthermore, acts as a preservative. It is a65 matter of importance to the buyer, however, that the fiber should not be too heavily oiled, for that merely increases the weight and cost of the rope without improving its quality. ”

“ Rope-Making in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries Coming down to more recent times we find that rope-making had been going on for centuries with probably very little change, up to the time of the introduction of machinery and the establishment of the factory system. ”

“ The compound laying-machine can be had in many sizes of differing bobbin capacity, and the extent and variety of a manufacturer’s equipment on this type is one important indication of his ability to turn out promptly and at a reasonable price the sizes of rope in most common demand. ”

“ The feed portion of the machine, as can be seen in the picture below, consists of a revolving endless chain fitted with fine steel pins, and by these the fiber—now in the sliver form given it in the preparation room—is drawn from its bundle and carried toward a tube which can be adjusted to regulate the size of the yarn as desired. ”