This may be considered the inherent evil of flax-spinning,—the spray thrown off by the wet yarn, as it whirls about with the flyer of the spindles. A working dress, indeed, is generally worn by the spinners; but, unless it be made of stuff impermeable to water, like Macintosh’s cloth, it will soon become uncomfortable, and cause injury to health by keeping the body continually in a hot bath. In some mills, water-proof cloth and leather aprons have actually been introduced, which are the only practicable remedy; for the free space which must be left round the spindles for the spinner to see them play, is incompatible with any kind of fixed guard or parapluie.
There was before the late Factory Bill passed, a class of very young children employed in the flax mills, under the name of little doffers, forming generally a troop of from four to ten in each spinning-room, who, the moment they perceived the bobbins of any frame or side of a frame exhausted of roving, ran together, and furnished it with full ones as quickly as possible. They were not numerous in all, but they had an occupation requiring a great activity and attention. It was practised also in the fine spinning-rooms, which are perfectly free from dust; and, as it involved a kneeling and stooping position, seemed peculiarly appropriate to children, and is still done by them at a somewhat more advanced age.
The adjoining [fig. 462.] will serve to explain the mechanism by which the fine spinning of flax is performed. The front pair of drawing rollers represented at F, was at one time moistened by letting water trickle upon it, from a vessel B, furnished with a stopcock placed a little above, or by immersing one half of the under-roller in the water-trough as at A. The roller pair C, which receives the fine rovings from bobbins placed on skewers or upright pins in the creel behind, is so mounted as to be fixed at any desired distance from the front rollers F. This distance should be always a little more than the average length of the filaments of the line; for if it were equal to it, they would be seized at both ends by the two pairs of rollers, which move with different velocities, and would be torn asunder, instead of being drawn out alongside of each other. The front rollers indeed move in many such machines four times faster than the back pair. The rest of this flax-spinning apparatus resembles in every respect the throstle frame of the cotton-spinner. The thread, as it escapes from the front rollers, gets twisted by the spindle and flyer, and wound up in constant progression on the bobbin, the motion of the latter being retarded either by a washer of leather beneath its lower end, or sometimes, as shown in the figure, by a weighted lever H, suspended from a cord, which embraces the pulley-groove turned on the lower end of the bobbin. This friction of this cord on the pulley, which may be varied by changing the length of leverage at which the weight acts, gives the bobbin the requisite retardation for winding up the yarn.
The bobbin G, at the same time that it has this retarded movement of revolution on its axis, has another motion up and down on the spindle I, to present itself at different points to the thread, and to cause the equal distribution of this over the surface of the bobbin-barrel. This latter motion is given by a double eccentric L, which by turning slowly on its axis, makes the balance-lever M oscillate, and thereby raises or depresses the bobbin-rail with its row of spindles. N is a section of the long tin drum, which extends the whole breadth of the frame, and communicates its rotatory motion, derived from the steam-pulley, to the spindles, by the intervention of the endless cotton cords O, as also to the fluted rollers C, F, and to the axis of the heart-shaped or eccentric wheel L, working in an endless screw.
The ratio of the velocity of the rollers of supply C, with the front or delivering rollers F, and with the spindles, is proportional to the fineness of the yarn. For low numbers, the draught is usually fourfold. The speed of the spindles also varies with the quality of the yarn, according as it is intended for warp or weft; the former requiring more twist than the latter; but never so much as to cause it to snarl into a knot, when left free to turn on itself.
One of the most important improvements hitherto made in the spinning of flax is that for which James Kay, of Preston, obtained a patent in July, 1825. Its peculiar feature is the maceration in warm water of the slivers or rovings, previously to spinning them, by conducting them into tin cans, with open bottoms, fitted into circular boxes having holes like a cullender, and immersed into a trough of warm water. The slivers as they pass from the rollers are let fall through the cans into these boxes, when they are to be repeatedly pressed and beaten down by a plunger, or the action of rollers, as may be most convenient. The material must be thoroughly freed from air, and macerated. After five or six hours it is to be removed from the water, and placed in its compressed state at the back part of a drawing and spinning machine. The cake being now turned over, the end of the roving first deposited in the can is drawn out with care, then raised up, and passed over a tension roller to the drawing apparatus. The first pair of rollers for the drawing process merely retains the filaments; while at a distance of two inches and a half the drawing rollers are placed. Both are fluted for the purpose of taking firm hold of the material; and the drawing pair is made to move eight times quicker than the retaining. As the flax fibres have in this state little or no elasticity, and as they adhere loosely in their macerated condition, the drawing rollers must be placed thus close to the retaining rollers, and being made to move at a proper speed, produce an extremely attenuated thread.
The adjoining table represents, in three compartments, the most important rooms in a flax-mill, viz.:—
I. The tow preparing room.