In the winter of ’72-3 I had a call from my friend, J. C. Hoadley, accompanied by Mr. Charles H. Waters, manager of the Clinton Wire Cloth Company. Mr. Waters wished to obtain one of our engines. I told him I was very sorry, but we should not be able to make one for him. I then explained our situation. Our lease would expire in a month or two, and could not be renewed, and we had made arrangements then to close our business, had sold all our tools deliverable before that date, were rushing two engines to completion, but absolutely could not undertake another order.
“Never mind,” said he, “one of your engines I must have.” He then told me that he was about to introduce a new feature in weaving wire cloth. This was then woven in various narrow widths, according to customers’ orders, having a selvage on each side. He had satisfied himself that this latter was unnecessary. The wire, being bent in weaving, had no tendency to ravel, and he had planned a loom to weave the cloth seven feet in width, and slit it up into narrow widths as required. In this loom the shuttle alone would weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, besides the great weight of wire it would carry; it had to be thrown nearly twelve feet, and he wanted to make as many picks per minute as any narrow loom could do. In order to make these throws uniformly, he required absolutely uniform motion. From a careful study of slow-moving variable cut-off engines, he had satisfied himself that none of them could give him the uniformity of motion he needed. They were driven by a succession of violent punches, these excessive amounts of force at the commencement of each stroke were absorbed by the fly-wheel, the velocity of which had to be increased to do it, and at the end of the stroke its velocity had to be reduced in the same degree, to supply the total failure of the force of the steam. This involved a variation of speed which in ordinary business would not be regarded, but which would ruin the action of this new loom. In the high speed of my engine, and the action of the reciprocating fly-wheel, which compensated the inequalities of the steam pressure without affecting the uniformity of the speed, he found just what he needed, and that engine he must have. I was astonished at the man’s penetration.
J. C. Hoadley
I was able to get from our landlord and purchasers of our tools the necessary extension of time, and made the engine for him. It and the loom were each a complete success. Mr. Waters told me long after that he never observed a single variation from exact uniformity of motion, without which his loom would have had to be abandoned.
I had one day the pleasure of meeting there the president of the Lancaster mills, the only other great industry of Clinton, who had come over expressly to examine the running of our engine. Before he left he said to me that the engine certainly presented a remarkable advance in steam engineering.
I saw there one thing that interested me greatly. That was, the method of painting wire cloth. This was carried on in a large tower high enough to enable a twenty-yard length of the “cloth” to be suspended in it. This was taken through a tub of paint, and drawn slowly upward between three successive pairs of rollers, the last pair of india-rubber, held firmly together. By these the paint was squeezed into every corner, both sides were thoroughly painted, and the surplus paint removed, so that every mesh was clear, a uniform perfection unattainable by hand painting, and two boys would paint in ten minutes as much as a painter could paint in a day. I think this was an invention by Mr. Waters.
With the completion of the engine for the Clinton Wire Cloth Company, the manufacture of the high-speed engine was closed for three years, from the spring of 1873 to the spring of 1876.
This long rest proved to be most valuable. Looking back upon it, I have always been impressed with its importance at that very time to the development of the high-speed system.
The design of the engine needed to be revised, and this revision involved study, to which time and leisure were essential.