The Story of the Cotton Plant

by Frederick Wilkinson

Of course, all the readers of this story must understand that in an ordinary-sized cotton spinning mill there will be many sets of these machines, just as there will be a large number of "carding engines" and "drawing frames," and mules. Bale brakers, openers and scutchers are so very productive that only a limited number is required as compared with the other machines already named.

Those of our readers who have studied the details of Arkwright's spinning frame, described in another chapter in this book, and have understood those details, will have a clear comprehension of the action of the parts and leading mechanical principles concerned in the operations of a modern bobbin and fly frame. Certainly there are some of the most difficult problems of cotton spinning involved in the mechanism of these machines, but these points are so highly technical that it is not intended to introduce them here.

The "set" of machines just named are usually known by the names "Slubber," "Intermediate or Second Slubber," and "Roving" Frames.

Nearly all the operations and mechanisms involved in one are almost identical in the others, so that a description of one only in the set is necessary, merely explaining that the parts of each machine the cotton comes to in the latter two of the set are smaller and more finely set than the corresponding parts of the immediately preceding machine.

Taking the Intermediate frame as a basis, the operation may be described as follows:—The bobbins formed at the slubbing frame are put in the creel of the Intermediate, as shown in the photograph ([Fig. 18]), each bobbin resting on a wooden skewer or peg which will easily rotate.

In order to increase the uniformity of the roving or strand of cotton, the ends from two of the slubbing rovings are conducted together through the rollers of the machine.

There are three pairs of these rollers, acting on the cotton in every way just as described for the drawing frame.

Although two rovings are put together behind the rollers, yet the "draft" or drawing-out power of the rollers is such, that the roving that issues from the front of the rollers is about three times as thin as each individual roving put up behind the rollers. This drawing-out action of the rollers need not be further dilated upon at this stage.

The points which demand some little attention at our hands, are the methods and mechanism involved in twisting the attenuated roving, and winding it upon bobbins or spools in suitable form for the next process.