A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines / containing a clear exposition of their principles and practice

by Andrew Ure

A third condition essential towards producing perfect regularity, is that the leather ought to be of the same thickness throughout its whole surface, otherwise the teeth, though of the same length and fixed at the same angle, would be rendered unequal by the different thicknesses of the leather, and the operation of carding would be in consequence extremely defective. [Fig. 267.] shows the card-teeth acting against each other, as indicated by the arrows in two opposite directions; in [fig. 269.] they work one way.

Of late years very complex but complete and well-acting machines have been constructed for splitting the leather or equalizing it by shaving, for bending and cutting the wires, and implanting them in the leather, into holes pierced with perfect regularity. Card machines which fashion the teeth with great precision and rapidity, and pierce the leather, have been for a considerable time in use at Halifax, in Yorkshire, a town famous for the excellence of its card-cloth, as also at Leeds, Glasgow, and several other places. The wires and the leather thus prepared are given out by the manufacturer to women and children, who put them together.

1. The simplest machine for equalizing the leather which can be employed, is that which I saw operating in MM. Scrive’s automatic card factory at Lille, the most magnificent I believe in the world, where the leather was drawn forwards by a roller over a solid horizontal table, or bed, and passed under a nicely adjusted vertical blade, which shaved it by a scraping motion to a perfectly uniform thickness. About one half the weight of the leather is lost in this process, and in the subsequent squaring and trimming.

The machine for making cards, invented I believe by a Mr. Ellis of the United States, for which a first patent was obtained in this country by Joseph Cheeseborough Dyer, Esq. of Manchester, in 1811, and a second and third with further improvements in 1814, and 1824, is one of the most elegant automatons ever applied to productive industry. It is however necessarily so complicated with different mechanisms as to render its representation impracticable in such engravings as are compatible with the scope of this dictionary. I must therefore content myself with the following general description of its constituent parts.

The first thing to be done after having, as above, prepared the long sheets or fillets of leather, of suitable length, breadth, and thickness, for making the cards, is to stretch the leather, and hold it firmly; which is accomplished by winding the fillet of leather upon the roller or drum, like the warp roller of a loom, and then conducting it upwards between guide rollers, to a receiving or work roller at top of the machine, where the fillet is held fast by a cramp, by which means the leather is kept stretched.

Secondly, the holes are pierced in the leather to receive the wire staples or teeth of the card, by means of a sliding fork, the points of which are presented to the face of the leather; while the fork is made to advance and recede continually, by the agency of levers worked by rotatory cams upon a revolving main shaft.

The points of the fork being thus made to penetrate into the leather, the holes for receiving the staples are pierced, at regular distances, and in correct order, by shifting the leather fillet so as to bring different parts of its surface opposite to the points of the sliding fork. This is done by cams, or indented wheels and gear, which shift the guide rollers and confining drums laterally, as they revolve, and consequently move the fillet of leather at intervals a short distance, so as to present to the points of the fork or piercer at every movement, a different part of the surface of the leather.

Thirdly, the wire of which the teeth or points of the card are to be made, is supplied from a coil on the side of the machine, and is brought forward at intervals, by a pair of sliding pincers, which are slidden to and fro through the agency of levers actuated by rotatory cams upon the main shaft. The pincers having advanced a distance equal to the length of wire intended to form one staple, or two points, this length of wire is pressed upon exactly in the middle by a square piece of steel, and being there confined, a cutter is brought forward, which cuts it off from that part of the wire held in the pincers.

The length of wire thus separated and confined, is now, by a movement of the machine, bent up along the sides of the square steel holder, and shaped to three edges of the square, that is, formed as a staple; and in the same way, by the continued movements of the machine, a succession of pieces of wire are cut off, and bent into staples for making the teeth of the card as long as the mechanism is kept in action.