DESTINATION OF THE SPUN YARN.
Having initiated our readers into all the processes incidental to the production of the long fine threads of yarn from the ponderous and weighty bales of cotton as received at the mill, it remains for us to briefly indicate the more common uses to which the spun yarn is applied.
A very large quantity of yarn is consumed in the weaving mills for the production of grey cloth without further treatment in the spinning mill, except that the cops of yarn are packed in ships, boxes, or casks, in convenient form for transit purposes.
If for weft, the cops are forthwith taken to the loom, ready for the shuttle.
If for warp, then the yarn passes through a number of processes necessary for its conversion, from the mule cop or ring bobbin form, into the sheet form, consisting of many hundreds of threads, which are then wound on a beam.
Briefly enumerated, these processes are as follows:—
(a) The winding frame, in which the threads from the cops or spools are wound upon flanged wooden bobbins, suitable for the creel of the next machine.
(b) The beam warping frame, in which perhaps 400 threads are pulled from the bobbins made at the winding frame, and wound side by side upon a large wooden beam.
(c) The "slasher sizing frame," in which the threads from perhaps five of the beams made at the warping machine are unwound and laid upon one another, so as to form a much denser warp of perhaps 2000 threads, and wrapped on a beam in a suitable form for fitting in the loom as the warp or "woof" of the woven fabric. In addition to this, the sizing machine contains mechanism by which the threads are made to pass through a mixing of "size" or paste, which strengthens the threads.
In some cases this "size" is laid on the yarn very thickly, in order to make the cloth weigh heavier.