As its name indicates the beam is warped in several sections called “cheeses,” of the usual diameter, but only about five inches in width. Several of these sections are afterwards slid on a bar, compressed at the ends and treated in the usual way. If required to be made into a ball, the ends are gathered into a loose rope and coiled in a balling machine. This latter method is generally adopted in those spinning mills where the yarn is warped by the spinner and sold in the ball. The sectional mill is a diminutive beaming frame of 400 bobbins running at a high speed. The yarn is warped on a square block between two circular plates, and when doffed is flangeless, thus necessitating careful treatment.
There is an interesting piece of apparatus attached to these machines for making all the cheeses of a uniform diameter when a certain fixed length has been wound on, and the increase of diameter is regulated automatically by the increment of length. The advantage of this is obvious when using two counts, say 30’s and 40’s, the warp in each case being, say, 1200 yards long.
If the diameter of warp were not regulated in any way, and the same strain placed on the yarn, the 30’s warp would be of greater diameter than the 40’s, or if of the same diameter the 40’s would be softer.
To obviate this a standard cheese is made; and in making it, the attendant releases the setting lever, and allows the stud to move freely in the vertical slot. With it is also released the scale lever, and the other parts which control the presser. A required length of warp is wound on the section block, say the length of a cut, which is indicated by the measuring roller, and the movement thus made by the presser is shown by the movement of the stud in the vertical slot. The hand-wheel is then turned until the stud has returned to its former position opposite the recess in the back of the slot. The position of the nut is then noted on the front scale, and tightened up by the handle shown. The setting lever is now brought forward, and the stud resumes its normal position in the recess, and the setting operation completed. In order that each succeeding section may be the exact size and length of its predecessor, the only attention necessary by the warper is to see that the revolution indicator points to the same figures. Thus, when all are run off together, their sizes diminish at an equal rate.
This machine is taking the place of the warping mill in the cotton trade, especially for coloured work.
Ball Warping on the Warping Mill.
Before beam warping was invented, ball warping was the system commonly employed in the preparation of yarn for sizing. This is a somewhat clumsy method, and so far as the cotton trade is concerned has been superseded by a modern system, excepting in one or two cotton manufacturing districts situated on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and for certain classes of goods in Bolton. A brief reference to it will not be out of place then, although, probably, the subject may interest few readers rather than many. The warping mill consists of a creel for bobbins, and a large circular frame. These are of different sizes, a common circumference being about 18 yards. This framework, or reel, is about 10 feet high, and thus forms a somewhat extensive cylinder. About 500 bobbins (which are wound from the cop in the ordinary manner) are placed in the creel and the ends from each are gathered together midway between the reel and the creel, at what is termed the heck box. This slides vertically between two posts, and has for its object the correct guidance of the yarn to the reel and also the keeping of the lease. The latter term will be understood by all connected with weaving as being the separation of the threads alternately, an arrangement which is used to enable the position of the ends being easily found in succeeding processes. Supposing there are 504 ends in the creel, these would pass through the heck box, and forming a loose rope be attached to the top of the mill. This revolves, and as by suitable mechanism the heck descends, the warp is coiled round the cylinder spirally, making in all several hundred yards, say 350. When the bottom of the mill is reached the direction of revolution is reversed, and a second layer wound upon the first one, and a third layer on the second, thus a warp of (3 × 504) 1512 ends is made 350 yards in length. Of course, the dimensions of the warp may be varied either in length or number of ends. The warp is now unwound from the mill and coiled in the form of a large ball. In districts where ball-warping is still used, the manufacturer is not usually his own sizer, and the warp, therefore, is now removed to a sizer’s establishment, where, after being weighted to the required extent, it is coiled into ball form again and returned. In the few places where ball-warping is still used the warping mill just described has been superseded by the sectional warping frame, as the ends are kept straighter, and a greater length run through in the same time. The uneven lengths in the old ball-warping mill, caused by the outside layers being longer than the inner ones, are also obviated.
