726 CARDS 



Cards are formed of a shoot or fillet of leather pierced with a multitude of small 

 holes, in -which are implanted small staples of wire with bent projecting ends called 

 teeth. Thus every piece of wire is double toothed. The leather is afterwards applied 

 to a flat or cylindrical surface of wood or metal, and the co-operation of two or more 

 such surfaces constitute a card. The teeth of cards are made thicker or slenderer, 

 according as the filaments to be carded are coarser or finer, stiffer or more pliant, 

 more valuable or cheaper. It is obviously of groat importance that the teeth should 

 be all alike, equably distributed, and equally inclined over the surface of the leather, 

 a degree of precision which is scarcely possible with handwork. To judge of the 

 difficulty of this manipulation, we need only inspect the annexed figures, 430, 481. The 

 wire must first be bent at right angles in c and d,fig. 432, then each branch must receive 

 a second bend at a and b at a determinate obtuse angle, invariable for each system of 

 cards. It is indispensable that the two angles cae and d bfbo mathematically equal, 

 not only as to the twin teeth of one staple, but through the whole series : for it; is easy 

 to see that if one of the teeth bo more or less sloped than its fellow, it will lay hold of 

 more or less wool than it, and render the carding irregular. But though the perfect 

 regularity of the teeth be important, it is not the sole condition towards making a good 

 card. It must be always kept in view that these teeth are to be implanted by pairs 

 in a piece of leather, and kept in by the cross part c d. The leather must therefore 

 be pierced with twin holes at the distance c d : and pierced in such a manner that the 

 slope of the holes, in reference to the piano of the leather, be invariably the same ; for 

 otherwise the length of the teeth would vary with this angle of inclination, and the 

 card would bo irregular. 



A third condition essential towards producing perfect regularity, is that the leather 

 ougnt to be of the same thickness throughout its whole surface, otherwise tho teeth, 

 though of the same length and fixed at the same angle, would be rendered unequal by 

 the different thicknesses of the leather, and the operation of carding would be in 



430 432 431 



consequence extremely defective. Fig. 430 shows the card-teeth acting against each 

 other, as indicated by the arrows in two opposite directions ; infig. 431 they work one way. 



Of late years very complex but complete and well-acting machines have been con- 

 structed for splitting the leather or equalising it by shaving, for bending and cutting 

 the wires, and implanting them in the leather, into holes pierced with perfect regu- 

 larity. Card machines which fashion the teeth with great precision and rapidity, and 

 pierce the leather, have been for a considerable time in use at Halifax, in Yorkshire, a 

 town famous for the excellence of its card-cloth, as also Leeds, Glasgow, and several 

 other places. The wires and the leather thus prepared are given out by the manufac- 

 turer to women and children, who put them together. 



The simplest machine for equalising tho leather which can be employed, is that of 

 MM. Scrive of Lille, where the leather is drawn forwards by a roller over a solid 

 horizontal table, or bed, and passed under a nicely adjusted vertical blade, which 

 shaves it by a scraping motion to a perfectly uniform thickness. About one-half the 

 weight of the leather is lost in this process and in the subsequent squaring and trimming. 



A machine for making cards, invented by a Mr. Ellis of tho United States, for 

 which a first patent was obtained in this country by Joseph Cheeseborough Dyer, Esq., 

 of Manchester, in 1811, and a second and third with further improvements in 1814 

 and 1824, is one of the most elegant automatons ever applied to productive industry. 

 It is, however, necessarily so complicated with different mechanisms as to render its 

 representation impracticable in such engravings as are compatible with the scope of 

 this Dictionary. Tho following general description of its constituent parts must there- 

 fore suffice : 



The first thing to be done after having, as above, prepared the long sheets or fillets 

 of leather of suitable length, breadth, and thickness, for making the cards, is to stretch 

 the leather, and hold it firmly ; which is accomplished by winding the fillet of leather 

 upon the roller or drum, like the warp-roller of a loom, and then conducting it up- 

 wards, between guide rollers, to a receiving or work roller at the top of the machine, 

 where the fillet is held fast by a cramp, by which means the leather is kept stretched. 



Secondly, the holes are pierced in the leather to receive tho wire staples or teeth of 



