336 CHARLES M. KARCH 



formed by cutting the blank down to its required size, and 

 in the other method the wire is cut into short pieces about 

 one third the required length of the needle when finished, 

 and then by a process known as cold swaging these are brought 

 to the proper length. 



As the modern machinery used in the first process men- 

 tioned is largely of private designs, the manufacture can not 

 be described in detail, but it may fairly be inferred from the 

 following method used a few years ago: At that time the 

 needle was made from the best quality of crucible steel wire, 

 which was received in coils, and after being straightened by 

 means of automatic machinery was fed into a machine devised 

 to form the large end of the needle and cut off blanks of the 

 required length. The blanks were then sent to machines, 

 three in number, for roughing, dressing, and smoothing. 

 The first two worked with coarse and fine emery wheels, 

 respectively, and the third with an emery belt. Into these 

 machines the blanks were fed from a hopper onto a grooved 

 endless traveling carrier, which exposed to the action of 

 the emery wheel that portion of the blank which was to be 

 reduced in diameter to form the shank of the needle. The 

 portion not reduced was that designed to be placed in the 

 end of the needle bar of the sewing machine. As the needles 

 passed the emery wheel they were rotated by a pair of recip- 

 rocating plates, so that they were equally ground on all sides. 

 After the process was completed by the emery wheel belt in 

 the third machine, the needles were passed on to another 

 machine where the taper pointing was done. When taper 

 pointed the blank was passed to a machine where the two 

 grooves on the sides of the needle were made by two circular 

 saws past which the blank was fed automatically. The saws 

 were pressed in against the needles and then withdrawn at such 

 times as would give the required depth and contour to the 

 groove. The eye was then punched by a belt driven punch- 

 ing machine, after which the needles were heated to a cherry 

 red in a reverberatory furnace with a charcoal fire, taken out 

 and immersed in whale oil. They were then placed in sheet 

 iron pans suspended from the arms of a revolving shaft, and 

 tempered in an oven heated by the surplus heat of the fur- 



