SPINNING ON EARLY-TYPE MACHINE
Our founder’s belief in the new method was speedily justified. A way was found to adapt the machines to the spinning of Russian and American hemps which could not at first be handled as successfully as Manila because of their somewhat softer texture. About 1848 the self-feeding device came into use. As the years passed, still other improvements were invented and utilized, giving us the highly perfected machine of today.
Under favorable working conditions the only interruption in the spinning process, as now carried on, is the removal of the full bobbin and the substitution of an empty one. A bobbin will hold as much as half a mile of yarn which will weigh in the neighborhood of ten pounds—the length and weight of the load varying with different sizes of yarn.
The feed portion of the machine, as can be seen in the picture below, consists of a revolving endless chain fitted with fine steel pins, and by these the fiber—now in the sliver form given it in the preparation room—is drawn from its bundle and carried toward a tube which can be adjusted to regulate the size of the yarn as desired. Into this tube the fiber disappears in a fashion only to be described by the single word “whisked.”
THE MODERN SPINNING PROCESS
In the preceding chapter we spoke of the importance of an even sliver in the securing of a good yarn and pointed out the care with which our sliver is prepared. We have still further lessened the possibility of bunches or thin spots in our yarns by perfecting and installing on all spinning machines a device which insures a uniform amount of feed to the tube at all times.
The two capstans which pull the fiber from the pins and through the tube show in our picture directly at the left of the bobbin. Their revolution also imparts the twist to the yarn. The amount of this twist—the number of turns per foot—depends on the capstan’s speed and is fixed in a way best explained by describing the flyer—the first part of the machine to be perfected.
The closed flyer, as the present-day type is called, is composed of two discs joined by stay rods and carrying through their centers a spindle which holds the wooden bobbin. The capstans are set into the disc at the left and revolve with the flyer, at the same time receiving a lesser reverse power from an independent gearing. Their speed is, therefore, equivalent to the difference in speeds of these two drivers.