NEED-FIRE 



NEEDLES 



427 



Need-fire. See FIRE, Vol. IV. p. 630. 

 Needle-gun. See BREECH-LOADING, RIFLES. 



Needles. The sewing-needle must be one of 

 the oldest implements used by man. Bone needles 

 with eyes are found in the reindeer-caves of France, 

 and among the finds on the sites of the prehistoric 

 lake-dwellings of central Euro|>e there are numerous 

 'eyed' needles of bone and of bronze, but as yet only 

 a single one of iron appears to have l>een discovered". 

 Ancient bronze needles, 3J inches long, have been 

 fonnil in Egypt, and there are surgeon's needles 

 and thimbles which have been used in sewing with 

 ordinary needles from Pompeii in the Naples 

 mnseum. Savage races use needles of various 

 materials, such as Ixme, ivory, wood, and metal. 

 Some tribes do their sewing with awls of bone or 

 of thorns with which they make holes, and then by 

 pushing and pulling work the thread or string 

 through them in the same manner as a shoemaker 

 does. The Fuegians in sewing skins even make a 

 tie at every hole. The Kaffirs make needles of 

 iron or steel, with a constriction under the pin-like 

 head, round which the end of the thread is tied 

 instead of being passed through an eye. 



Steel needles were made in 1370 at Nuremberg, 

 at which early time it- artisans were skilled in 

 working metals, including the drawing of wire in 

 iron, steel, and brass. Previous to 1563 the wire 

 used for making needles in England was imported 

 from Spain and Germany, but in England the 

 manufacture was not of much importance till about 

 1650. The early-made needles were all square- 

 eyed. The seat of the needle-manufacture in Great 

 Britain is at Kedditch near Birmingham, where in 

 the best factories considerable improvements have 

 in recent years been effected by the adoption of 

 new mechanical appliances, and especially of auto- 

 matic machines in some of the processes. 



In the system of processes, about twenty-two in 

 number, by which needles are now made, the first 

 is the cutting of the coils of wire into two-needle 

 lengths by a guillotine shearing-machine. The 

 wire is of the best crucible steel, and requires to 

 lie very carefully gauged to size. After being cut, 

 the lengths of wire are raised to a dull red heat 

 and placed in loose bundles inside iron rings to be 

 straightened by rolling each bundle backwards and 

 forwards on a face plate with a slightly curved bar, 



Fig. 1. 



through which the rings project (see fig. 1). The 

 wires are next pointed at both ends, which was 

 formerly entirely done by hand on a grindstone with 

 a concave surface. An arrangement is MOW in use by 

 which the wires are withdrawn one closely follow- 

 ing another from a hopper by a pulley revolving 

 at right angles to the grindstone, the wires being 

 held to the face of the pulley by an india-rubber 

 band. In their passage bet ween the pulley and the 

 grindstone the wires {double-needle blanks) revolve 

 on their axes and Imcotne |>ointed at one end, and 

 the process is re|>eateil for the pointing at the other 

 nil. The fine steeJ dust formerly so injurious to 

 the health of the hand-grinders has for some years 

 been driwn away from the operative by the suction 

 of a stiong current of air. The stamping of these 

 two-length blanks in the middle by the hand-worked 



Fig. 3. 



stamping-machine so as to produce the flat of the 

 eyes and the mark for the holes (fig. 2), as well as 

 the punching of the holes by a screw press, can now 

 be accomplished by more expeditious machines. 



Fig. 2. 



By the newer method the wire blanks are auto- 

 matically fed into a quick-running belt-driven 

 machine, in which a punch and dies form the 

 prints or flats for the eyes. The next operation 

 consists in punching two oval holes through the 

 two printe of each blank by a vertical belt-driven 

 punching-machine. After being eyed the still 

 double blanks they are 

 now rather double needles 

 joined at the heads by 

 thin fins are ' spitted ' 

 through their eyes on two 

 wires flatted at one end 

 to retain them. The burr 

 made by the punch and 

 die (stamping) is now re- 

 moved by filing the spitted 

 needles on both sides, 

 and after being broken in 

 two lietween the heads, 

 which are then also 

 smoothed by filing, a row 

 of single needles is left on each spit, as shown in 

 fig. 3. 



In the tempering process which the needles 

 undergo at this stage, they are first hardened by 

 being laid on a plate and raised to a red heat in 

 a furnace, after which they are dipped in cod -oil, 

 kept cool by running off a portion as it gets warm 

 and replacing it by an equal quantity of cold oil. 

 The needles being now hard and easily broken, are 

 made less brittle by placing them on a continuous 

 band of wire gauze which travels slowly over gas 

 flames. The next step is to roll the needles one 

 by one under the finger on a smooth stone, and thus 

 weed out those that are bent. In parcels of 50,000 

 they are next washed and scoured with soap to 

 remove any of the oil used in tempering which still 

 adheres, and the eyes are afterwards 'blued' to 

 soften them. In the case of needles of fine quality 

 the eyes are gilt. By one method the eyes are 

 polished by threading them loosely on wires carried 

 by standards fixed to a tray or platform which is 

 moved rapidly with a reciprocating motion in a 

 horizontal plane. In about one hour, with the 

 assistance of a little fine emery and oil, the con- 

 stant swinging of the needles on the wire smooths 

 their eyes so as not to cut the thread. But the 

 eyes of the best needles are hand-polished with fine 

 emery on flax threads. The next step is to grind 

 the heads and set the points by hand on a rapidly- 

 revolving stone of fine texture. 



An ingenious machine is employed for the final 

 polishing of the shanks. The needles are fed in 

 a longitudinal direction, in rows one deep, between 

 transverse leather covered rollers, with holding 

 rollers above them. Besides turning on their own 

 axes, a lateral as well as a backward and forward 

 motion is given to the rollers, which produces a 

 high polish on the needles. The older method of 

 polishing needles is to put many thousands of them 

 along with putty powder and oil in a canvas bundle 

 wound round with a cord. A number of these rolls 

 or bundles are then placed between two wooden 

 slal>s the upper one heavily weighted and made 

 to roll backwards and forwards in a polishing- 

 machine for several hours. When taken out of 

 the canvas and the polishing material adhering to 



