NEEDLES AND PINS 337 



nace. Next, the needles were cleaned on an emery cloth, 

 being held in bunches of about 20 between the finger and 

 thumb and rotated while being pressed upon the cloth. They 

 were then taken, with the grooves upward, by flat jawed 

 tongs carrying 70 at a time, and held against a scratch brush 

 of brass wire, which revolved 8,000 times a minute, to polish 

 the grooves. The brush of brass wire was soon replaced by a 

 bristle brush, which finished the polishing of the grooves. 

 While yet held in the clamps these needles were threaded in 

 gangs on cotton thread, which was covered with oil and emery, 

 and then drawn back and forth in various slanting positions 

 so that the polishing powder would act on all parts of the eye. 

 When removed from the thread the needles were cleaned by 

 a revolving hairbrush, and the eyes, points, and blades in- 

 spected. Imperfect ones were thrown aside and the good 

 ones sent to the hand straightener, who rolled them on an 

 anvil at the level of the eye of an operator, who detected any 

 curvature and corrected it by a tap of a small hammer. The 

 final operations were finish pointing, which was done on a 

 fine emery wheel, and finish polishing, done by a revolving 

 hairbrush with crocus and alcohol. 



In the second method of manufacture the wire is fed into 

 a machine called the straightener and cutter, which straight- 

 ens the wire and cuts the blanks into pieces about one third 

 the length required for the finished needle. The blanks are 

 then placed in small iron cylinders rotated in such a manner 

 as to keep the blanks in constant friction, and thus remove 

 the scale and dirt. They are then ready for the cold swaging 

 machine. The blanks are placed in a hopper, from which 

 they are taken automatically, one at a time, and their ends 

 are presented to the action of a set of revolving sectional 

 steel dies. By the constant opening and shutting of these 

 dies while in rotation the ends of the blanks are compressed 

 and drawn out to form the blades. After swaging the blank 

 is stamped in order to identify it. In the process of swaging 

 there results a slight variation in the length of the needles, and 

 they are trimmed to a uniform length by the clipping and 

 straightening machine. The prominent feature of this ma- 

 chine is the arrangement of the screw feed for simultaneously 



Vol. 7—22 



