"Scutchers" at work
In the revolving flat card, which dominates the field today, there are, as a rule, three principal cylinders. The lap passes first under the smallest of the three, called the taker-in, which is covered with very fine saw-teeth all in one long strip of steel, wound and fixed spirally in the surface of the cylinder. The taker-in receives the cotton from a feed-roller (C) that turns above a smooth iron plate (D) called the feed plate. The saw-teeth comb the fibers which are imbedded, so to speak, in the lap, and deliver the loose ones to the second cylinder, which is the largest of the group. This main cylinder is covered with wire teeth all bent at exactly the same angle. The cotton clings to them, and is carried around to the top 47 of the cylinder, where it is engaged by teeth on the revolving-flat card which are bent in the opposite direction. This "card-clothing" arranged in strip, crosswise on a travelling lattice, moves in the same direction as the cylinder but moves very slowly, and so the fibers are carded between the two sets of wire points, the short and immature fibers remaining on the card wires of the lattice and the perfect and now almost entirely parallel ones being carried over from the main cylinder to the doffer cylinder, the third of the trio. From this they are removed by an oscillating comb (F), coming off in a light, fleecy lap, which is condensed through a funnel into a soft untwisted roping, or sliver, about the diameter of a man’s thumb, and is then coiled into a can, usually about 45 inches high by 8 inches diameter.
View of Modern Motor-Driven Opener Picker
The conveying of the sliver (pronounced with a long or short i) into the can is in itself an exceedingly ingenious operation, although a very simple one. The device is attached directly to the card, and is called a coiler. The sliver passes into it from the funnel. The hole from which the sliver emerges is off the center of a steel plate which revolves slowly, so that the sliver, as it comes out, has an eccentric motion which causes it to fall into the can in regular coils. Tangling is thus prevented, and ease of handling secured.
Combing Necessary in
Spinning Fine "Counts"
Combing is necessary in the preparation of cotton for the spinning of fine "counts" or coarser yarns where great smoothness and regularity are desired. They are now quite extensively used in the United States, and it is significant of the trend of the industry here that the number is rapidly growing. The first cotton comber was invented by a Frenchman of Alsace named Heilmann. The patent was issued in 1845. Now there are on the market other machines, both English and American, similar in principle but improved in many ways.
