Textile machine

“ A characteristic feature of the manufacture is that the garment, or a portion of it, is knitted in a flat web which, in the course of knitting, is shaped by variation of its width, in such a way that it conforms to the contour of the body to be fitted, when its shaped edges are united in a seam. The desired variations in width are secured through control of the traverse or 'throw' of the yarn guide which brings the yarn to the needles of the machine as they knit the web. ”

“ STRETCHING MACHINE. Cotton goods and other textile fabrics, either white or printed, are prepared for the market by being stretched in a proper machine, which lays all their warp and woof yarns in truly parallel positions. A very ingenious and effective mechanism of this kind was made the subject of a patent by Mr. Samuel Morand, of Manchester, in April, 1834, which serves to extend the width of calico pieces, or of other cloths woven of cotton, wool, silk, or flax, after they have become shrunk in the processes of bleaching, dyeing, &c. ”

“ We cannot attempt to describe all the machinery involved in the spinning and weaving of yarn, but it is highly important that every well-informed person have a general knowledge of textile machinery. Because cotton cloth is more widely used than either linen or wool, we shall confine ourselves to the cotton branch of the textile industry, particularly as the difference between the treatment of cotton and other textile materials lies chiefly in the preparation of the thread or yarn. ”

“ True, other branches of the textile industry have also benefited by the application of machine methods of spinning and weaving similar to those above described; but no other important textile has seen such a remarkable growth under the stimulus of machine production as has cotton. ”

“ On the circular machine a seam is not necessary, for the complete cylinder of fabric is made at once. While it is possible to manufacture underwear on a circular frame, its use is far better adapted to the knitting of hosiery, and a very large industry for the manufacture of this product has grown up in and near Philadelphia. ”

“ By use of the attachment, as the specifications state, 'yarn-guides can be accurately controlled to lay a yarn over a distance less than the full length of a course being knitted, as for reinforcing or for so-called split-seam work wherein sections of fabric are connected by suture seams.' The attachment, it is stated, may be used for 'fashioning designs, as clocks, upon hosiery.'
Flat knitting machines are adaptable to use in the manufacture of full-fashioned garments such as stockings, underwear, or sweaters. ”

“ A series of inventions made in Philadelphia from 1867 to 1889 perfected the completely automatic circular machine of which there are now more than seven times as many in use in this country than there are full-fashioned knitters. The seamless machine goes on continuously and manufactures the entire garment at once. Narrowing is done by shortening the loops, and this accounts for the loss of elasticity. ”

“ The introduction of the sewing machine meant a tremendous increase in output over the old manual method of production, and as a result made thousands of needle women superfluous. It has been estimated that 70,000 women employed in the sewing trades were displaced by the machine. But the invention of machinery in this line of industry did not have the same immediate result as the invention of machinery in the textile trades. It did not make the sewing of garments a factory occupation. ”

“ In the more highly-developed branches of the textile and metal trades the division of processes appears at first sight more sharply marked than to-day. The carder, spinner, weaver, fuller in the cloth trade worked in the several processes of converting raw wool into finished cloth, related to one another only by a series of middlemen who supplied them with the material required for their work and received it back with the impress of their labour attached, to hand it out once more to undergo the next process. ”

“ With advancing civilization and refinement came demands for superior fabrics, which could only be answered by a supply of better fibre. Such fibre could only be secured from the bale by separating the long from the short, a problem well calculated to tax the ingenuity of an enlightened age. Attempts had been made to do this by hand implements not unlike the curry-comb of to-day, except that the teeth were long and tapering. This remained the only means employed for years, while other textile machinery passed through its phenomenal period of development. ”

“ Sharpe, Roberts, & Co. would probably afford a view of some parts of the most improved textile machinery in a state of rest, as well as a very excellent idea of the rapid progress of mechanical arts. Improvements in manufacturing machines are so constant and rapid, that it is almost a proverb—“that before a foreigner can get the most improved machinery which he has purchased in England home and at work, something better will be invented.”
A Manchester manufacturer, on the approach of a busy season, will sometimes stop his factories to put in new machines, at a cost of twenty thousand pounds. ”

“ Grain, in the elaborate machinery of a steam flour mill, passes through a score of different stages, cleaning, winnowing, grinding, etc. The American machine-made watch is the product of 370 separate processes. The organisation of a modern textile factory provides a dozen different processes contributing to the spinning or weaving of cotton or silk. New processes of cleaning, finishing, and ornamenting are continually being added. The subsidiary process of packing, the manufacture of packing cases, the printing of labels, etc., are taken on in many factories. ”

“ From machines of larger diameter are made garments such as nightdresses where the fabric is produced in the form of a large circular sack, a length of which is taken to form the body whilst similar circular pieces are produced on machines of smaller diameter for the sleeves. The practice of making garments of the sweater or "Jumper" class on circular frames is on the increase especially since machine types have been evolved which can make rib, plain, pearl and striped fabrics on one and the same machine with a suitable arrangement for narrowing. ”

“ The making of the primary thread is the foundation of all textile processes, and it is on the possibility of doing this by automatic machinery that England's great textile industries depend. The use of highly developed machinery for spinning cotton, wool, and flax has grown to be so much a part of our conception of modern life, as contrasted with the times of our grandfathers, as often to lead to the feeling that a complete and universal change has occurred in all the textile industries. ”

“ To manufacture these cloths, three shuttles are employed, and as yet no successful attempt has been made to imitate them on the power loom. The bordered cloth weavers do not suffer from the direct competition of machine-made piece-goods, and the depression in their branch of the industry is due to changes in the tastes of the people.4 In the [272] manufacture of a cloth from the raw material there are three distinct processes: spinning, warping, and weaving. Modern machinery has absolutely and completely ousted hand-spinning ”

“ To go back to our two cents' worth of cotton, which has been converted into yarn. It is subjected to the action of several machines before it reaches the loom, where it is converted into cloth. Weaving, like spinning, is old, and some sort of machinery has always been employed in the process, but the power-loom of our factories is a modern invention. I sometimes think it is the most wonderful machine used. To make one yard of cloth, a shuttle carrying the filling-thread is thrown across the web perhaps 1,500 times, at the rate of a hundred crossings a minute. ”

“ The mender should use good judgment as to the amount of work to be applied to each garment. She should substitute the machine needle whenever possible and not put tiny stitches by hand into half worn garments or in unseen places. Ripped tucks and bands can be sewed in a few minutes on the machine. Serviceable darning can be done on the machine. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. SPINDLE, LOOM, AND NEEDLE IN NEW ENGLAND
The major steps in the manufacture of clothes are four: first to harvest and clean the fiber or wool; second, to card it and spin it into threads; third, to weave the threads into cloth; and, finally to fashion and sew the cloth into clothes. We have already seen the influence of Eli Whitney's cotton gin on the first process, and the series of inventions for spinning and weaving, which so profoundly changed the textile industry in Great Britain, has been mentioned. ”

“ The invention and application of machinery, that began to revolutionize the manufacture of shoes at about the same time when the sewing machine began to revolutionize the clothing trades, had two distinct and opposite results. First it drove the women out of this industry, and then, after an interval of thirty years, it brought them back again in greater numbers. ”

“ Strictly speaking, cotton could be spun in the same way; but, however clever Mother Ambroisine may be, the fabrics made from the thread of her wheel would cost an enormous price on account of the time spent. What, then, is to be done? A machine is made to spin the cotton. In rooms larger than the biggest church are placed, by hundreds of thousands, the nicely adjusted machines proper for spinning, with hooks, spindles, and bobbins. And all turn at the same time with a precision and rapidity that defy watching. ”

“ The production of yarn required something more than spinning. The fibres in the massed cotton or wool, as delivered to the manufacturer, must be opened, untangled, straightened out, and laid parallel by a series of preparing machines prior to being spun, among which the carding engine ranks first. In the incipient form, this machine dates as far back as the middle of the eighteenth century, when, by hand manipulation, two cylinders covered with small teeth and working in close proximity disintegrated the fibrous mass ”

“ The razor he shaves with, the mirror which helps him in the operation, the very brush and soap, all are machine-made. With his clothes he adds to the burden of his indebtedness to mechanism. The power-loom span the linen for his shirts, the cloth for his outer garments. Shirts and collars are glossy from the treatment of the steam laundry, where machinery is rampant. His boots, kept shapely by machine-made lasts, should remind him that mechanical devices have played a large part in their manufacture, very possibly the human hand has scarcely had a single duty to perform. ”

“ Great factories now make ready-made clothing for men, women and children, shirts, collars and cuffs, shoes, hats, caps, awnings, tents, sails, bags, flags, banners, corsets, gloves, pocketbooks, harness, saddlery, rubber goods, etc., and all these industries are founded upon the sewing machine, which may be seen in long rows beside the factory walls, busily supplying the demand of the world. With this transition in the sewing machine foot treadles are no longer relied on, but the machines are run by power from countershafts. ”

“ In regard to making full-fashioned goods almost every form of garment can be made on it-pants, shirts, hose and half-hose, coats, vestings, caps and gloves, are only a few of the garments procurable. These can be fashioned by the worker to the required form and an interpretation can be given to symmetry and style of the human form. It has found an extensive application as a hand machine to the making of seamless gloves being used by the most progressive firms in the trade, and with the application of power it can be adapted with considerable success to the making of goods in the bulk. ”

“ Of course it must be understood that a combing machine is used by only a small percentage of cotton spinners. For ordinary purposes a sufficiently good quality can be made without a comber. As there is from 15 to 35 per cent waste to this operation it may be readily seen that it is costly, and limited entirely to the production of the very best and finest yarns, such as those intended for sewing or machine thread, fine hosiery, lace curtains, underwear, imitation silks, and fine grades of white goods. There are combing machines that comb short staple cotton. ”

“ A shirt factory was established, in 1832, on Cherry and Market Streets, New York. But not until the coming of the power-driven sewing machine could there be any factory production of clothes on a large scale. Since then the clothing industry has become one of the most important in the country. The factories have steadily improved their models and materials, and at the present day only a negligible fraction of the people of the United States wear clothes made to their order.
The sewing machine today does many things besides sewing a seam. ”

“ At present, in the localities where mills are using both the circular and flat straight needle bed machines, it is generally understood that a flat fabric is a fabric of single thickness made on a flat machine, regardless of the stitch, and any fabric made on a circular machine is known as a tubular fabric. ”

“ There are also corrugating, creasing, fluting, pebbling, piercing and punching machines; machines for grinding the bark and also for grinding the leather; machines for gluing sections of leather together, and machines for sewing them; machines for rounding flat strips of leather, for the making of whips and tubes; machines for scalloping the edges; and a very ingenious machine for assorting leather strips or strings according to their size or thickness.
The most important improvements of the century in leather working relate to the manufacture of boots and shoes. ”