NEALING. See [Annealing].
NEB-NEB, is the East Indian name of [Bablah].
NEEDLE MANUFACTURE. When we consider the simplicity, smallness, and moderate price of a needle, we would be naturally led to suppose that this little instrument requires neither much labour nor complicated manipulations in its construction; but when we learn that every sewing needle, however inconsiderable its size, passes through the hands of 120 different operatives, before it is ready for sale, we cannot fail to be surprised.
The best steel, reduced by a wire-drawing machine to the suitable diameter, is the material of which needles are formed. It is brought in bundles to the needle factory, and carefully examined. For this purpose, the ends of a few wires in each bundle are cut off, ignited, and hardened by plunging them into cold water. They are now snapped between the fingers, in order to judge of their quality; the bundles belonging to the most brittle wires are set aside, to be employed in making a peculiar kind of needles.
After the quality of the steel wire has been properly ascertained, it is calibred by means of a gauge, to see if it be equally thick and round throughout, for which purpose merely some of the coils of the bundle of wires are tried. Those that are too thick are returned to the wire-drawer, or set apart for another size of needles.
The first operation, properly speaking, of the needle factory, is unwinding the bundles of wires. With this view the operative places the coil upon a somewhat conical reel, [fig. 750.], whereon he may fix it at a height proportioned to its diameter. The wire is wound off upon a wheel B, formed of eight equal arms, placed at equal distances round a nave, which is supported by a polished round axle of iron, made fast to a strong upright C, fixed to the floor of the workshop. Each of the arms is 54 inches long; and one of them D, consists of two parts; of an upper part, which bears the cross bar E, to which the wire is applied; and of an under part, connected with the nave. The part E slides in a slot in the fixed part F, and is made fast to it by a peg at a proper height for placing the ends of all the spokes in the circumference of a circle. This arrangement is necessary, to permit the wire to be readily taken off the reel, after being wound tight round its eight branches. The peg is then removed, the branch pushed down, and the coil of wire released. [Fig. 751.] shows the wheel in profile. It is driven by the winch-handle G.
