It has been said that that which a man gives the most freely and receives with the worst grace is advice. I will, however, close with a little of the article which may not be wholly put of place. If you have a mill do not imagine that the addition of a few pairs of rolls, a purifier or two, and a little overhauling of bolting-chests, is going to make it a full-fledged Hungarian roller mill. If you are going to change an old mill or build a new one, do not take the counsel or follow the plans of every itinerant miller or millwright who claims to know all about gradual reduction. No matter what kind of a mill you want to build, go to some milling engineer who has a reputation for good work, tell him how large a mill you want, show him samples of the wheat it must use and the grades of flour it must make, and have him make a programme for the mill and plan the machinery to fit it. Then have the mill built to fit the machinery. When it starts follow the programme, whether it agrees with your preconceived notions or not, and the mill will, in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, do good work.
MACHINE FOR DOTTING TULLES AND OTHER LIGHT FABRICS.
Dotted or chenilled tulles are fabrics extensively used in the toilet of ladies, and the ornamentation of which has hitherto been done by the application to the tissue, by hand, either of chenille or of small circles previously cut out of velvet. This work, which naturally takes considerable time, greatly increases the cost price of the article.
A few trials at doing the work mechanically have been made, but without any practical outcome. The workwomen who do the dotting are paid at Lyons at the rate of 80 centimes per 100 dots; so that if we take tulle with dots counter-simpled 0.04 of an inch, which is the smallest quincunx used, and suppose that the tissue is 31 inches wide and that the daily maximum production is one yard, we find that 400 dots at 80 centimes per 100 = 3 francs and 20 centimes (about 63 cents), the cost of dotting per yard. It is true that the workwoman furnishes the velvet herself.
Mr. C. Ricanet, of Lyons, has recently invented a machine with which he effects mechanically the different operations of dotting, not only on tulles but also upon gauzes or any other light tissues whatever, such as those of cotton, silk, wool, etc. Aided by a talented mechanic, Mr. Ricanet has succeeded in constructing one of those masterpieces of wonderfully accurate mechanism of which the textile industry appears to have the monopoly--at least it is permissible to judge so from the remarkable inventions of Vaucanson, Jacquard, Philippe de Girard, Heilmann, and others.
The object of this new machine, then, which has been doing its wonderful work for a few days only, is to reproduce artificially chenille embroidered on light tissues, by mechanically cutting out and gluing small circles of velvet upon these fabrics.
For this purpose all kinds of velvet may be employed, and, in order to facilitate the cutting, they are previously coated on the reverse side with any glue or gum whatever, which gives the velvet a stiffness favorable to the action of the punch. To effect the object desired the apparatus has three successive operations to perform: first, cutting the circles; second, moistening; and third, fastening down the dots upon the tissue according to a definite order and spacing. The machine may be constructed upon any scale whatever, although at present it is only made for operating on pieces 31 inches wide, that being the normal width of dotted tulles. The quincuncial arrangement of the dots is effected by the punching, moistening, and fastening down of odd and even dots, combined with the forward movement of the tissue to be chenilled.
The principal part of the machine is the cam-shaft, A (Figs. 1, 2, and 3), which revolves in the direction of the arrows and passes in the center of 80 cam-wheels, 40 of which are odd and 40 even, alternately opposed to each other. This shaft actuates, through its two extremities, the different combined motions in view of the final object to be attained, and also carries the motive pulleys, PP'. Figs. 1 and 2 show the profile of two of these opposed cam-wheels--the arrangement by means of which two rows of dots (odd and even) are laid down upon the tissue during one revolution of the shaft or drum, A. Each of the wheels carries three cams (Figs. 1 and 3), the first, (a), corresponding to the punching; the second, (a'), to the moistening, and the third, (a''), to the gluing down of the dots.