1. History of the Filature
Early Reeling and Twisting
Vaucanson’s Filature
Silk Manufacture in Europe
The next step in the production of silk is called reeling, and for this purpose the modern filature has been developed. The actual existence of reeling machines is by no means modern, however, for it is a well-known fact that the Chinese knew how to use raw silk as far back as 5000 years ago. Old prints dating back 3000 years show that the hand “reelers” then in use differed little in principle from the highly developed filatures of today. Although China knew how to reel and twist silk for several thousand years, it was only in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries A. D. that other countries, such as Japan and Eastern Europe, took it up. The first filatures were, of course, extremely simple, operated entirely by hand, and produced a very coarse thread. Although a little progress was made during the Middle Ages, the turning point came in 1750 when Vaucanson, a French engineer, invented the first real filature—which combined several reelers, giving the whole process more speed and turning out a product of considerably better quality. This marked the beginning of Europe’s interest in what had so long been an exclusively Oriental industry, and from then on the French, Italians and Spanish in particular took up the study of sericulture and the reeling and manufacturing process. The result was to put the industry on a scientific basis which it had never reached in the East.
The Reeling Basins