1101 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. 



WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. 1003 



were put into a small frame with handles, so as to form a kind of 

 curry-comb ; and thia was worked by two men over the surface of the 

 cloth, which wan suspended horizontally, the direction of working being 

 first parallel with the warp, and then parallel with the weft. From 

 the trouble required to clean the barbs of the teazles when filled 

 with woollen fibres, from the weakening of their points by the water 

 A\ith which the cloth was saturated, and from the high price which the 

 large demand enabled them to command in the market, numerous 

 attempts were made from time to time to substitute metallic points ; 

 but from various causes the teazles are still preferred, and are now- 

 used in a more efficacious way than formerly. The teazles are arranged 

 on a cylinder in a machine called a yiy-mill ; the cloth is stretched on 



Ciz-Milt. 



ttvo cloth-beams ; the cylinder moves in one direction and the cloth in 

 an >tlir, and the fibres become thereby worked or combed up. The 

 annexed cut shows the section of such a machine; where the cloth, 

 11; from a roller h, round the roller i, comes in contact with the 

 brunhes c on the wheel a, and afterwards passes round g and I to the 

 roller k ; the roller g being so regulated by the pinion re and the rack 

 m as to keep the cloth thoroughly stretched ; and the revolving brush 

 ; so adjusted as to clean the teazling cards c. In some machines 

 the teazling-points are mails of wire, to obviate the waste of 3000 

 nntnml teu/lv*, which tikes place in the dressing of one piece of 

 doth. 



When the ends of the fibres have been thus raised to the surface, 



thvy are next s/ifom/ or crop/ml, a process of great beauty and singu- 



1 uity. Originally thU process was performed by means of large hand 



, the cloth leing stretched over a stuffed table, and the workman 



proceeding to clip the ends of the fibres in a regular and equable 



manner. This was all operation requiring great dexterity ; and the 



li" worked at it beiny in the receipt of good wages, were so 



Cloth-thearing Machine. 



But the machines became by degrees extensively employed. They 

 consisted each of a pair of shears, as in the hand-method ; but all the 

 movements were effected by machinery. More recently a machine has 

 been introduced the action of which is regulated on a different principle, 

 as will be seen from the annexed cut: 644 are disk-formed cutters, 

 working against a thin bar of steel, a a a, of a semicircular form ; which 

 cutters in their revolution travel round against the edge of the bar or 

 blade in such a way as to shave off the filaments standing up on the 

 surface of the cloth beneath. The cloth is represented by the shaded 

 part. The wheel ccc, set in motion by machinery, imparts action to 

 the circular cutters attached to it through the medium of the rack d d. 

 It is easy to see that, whether the machine travels along over the 

 cloth, or the cloth travels along beneath the machine, every part of the 

 fibrous surface is acted upon in precisely the same way by the double 

 rotation of the wheel and the disk-cutters. There are other shearing 

 machines in use, of equal ingenuity. 



When the cloth has been raised and sheared (which operations are 

 repeated two or three times for superfine cloth), it is brushed by a 

 machine consisting of a system of brushes affixed to cylinders ; the 

 cloth being exposed at the same time to the action of the brushes and 

 of steam. A few subsequent operations are carried on, having for 

 their object the imparting of smoothness, gloss, &c. to the cloth, pre- 

 paratory to its being placed in the hands of the dealers. 



We have described most of the manufacturing operations in their 

 simpler forms, for more ready comprehension ; but it is well to bear in 

 mind that new machines and new processes are being continually 

 brought into this departmeut of industry. A meeting of Leeds 

 woollen manufacturers took place in 1860, to examine a new French 

 machine invented by MM. Tavernitr and Vouillon, " to convert slivers 

 or rovings, as they came from the carding-engine, into threads suitable 

 for weaving, by felting and friction, without any spinning process." 

 It was declared that " many gold medals had been awarded in France 

 for the invention ; that many of the machines were at work ; that no 

 oil or size is necessary as a dressing ; and that 30 per cent, of wool is 

 saved.'" So far as we are aware, this favourable description failed to 

 make the intended impression on the manufacturers. Many of the 

 recent novelties in the trade relate to the employment of cotton for 

 warp-threads, and of rag-wool mixed with new wool for weft ; a sub- 

 ject briefly noticed under SHODDY MANUKAC'TUHU. One inventor has 

 brought into use a machine called a combiner, by which, when attached 

 to the carding-engine, the wool is brought off in a continuous sliver 

 wound on cylinders, ready to be conveyed to the spinning-machine. 

 Mr. Archibald, of Tillicoultry, in 1858, introduced a machine for 

 piecing the lengths of carded wool as they leave the carding-engine, 

 and forming them into a continuous length or roving ; the rolls drop 

 into revenging channels, and thence to travelling belts, which convey 

 them to a machine where they are connected into a length more uni- 

 formly than in the ordinary way. Without noticing the almost num- 

 berless new machines and processes, we may just mention a very curious 

 process, patented by Messrs. Tolson and Irving, for imparting a metallic 

 lustre to fine woollen cloth. The cloth, either in the yarn or when 

 woven, is steeped in a solution of sulphate or oxide, of copper, lead, or 

 bismuth, and then exposed to steam charged with sulphuretted hydro- 

 gen gas, by which a metallic deposition takes place. 



Other matters relating to the manufacture of woollen cloth will come 

 under notice presently. 



]\'ur;-t&l nr Xt H if manufacture, The long wools for worsted fabrics, 

 not being felted or fulled, pass through a series of operations diltVrent 

 from those hitherto noticed ; since the object in view is rather to lay 

 the fibres in a parallel pi isition than to twist and entangle them one 

 among another. All combmg-wools are longer in fibre than the cloth- 

 ing-wools, but they are subject to the division into Ion;/ and short 

 combing wools ; the long, varying from six to twelve inches in length, 

 being used principally for coarse worsted goods ; and the short, from 

 four to seven inches, being used for hosiery and some other purposes. 



After the wool has been sorted, washed, and scoured from the adherent 

 grease, and dncd in a heated room, it is carried to a machine called a 

 plucker, containing a pair of spiked rollers, by the action of which 

 the wool is cleansed* separated, and the fibres straightened, preparatory 

 to the process of combing. In hand-cumf/iiiy, which, until modern 

 times, was the only mode followed, and which is rather laborious work, 

 the proceedings are somewhat as follow : The comber is provided 



Wool-Combs. 



alarmed at the introduction of shearing-maihinen, in the early part of with a pair of combs such as are here represented, a comb-post to 

 re-Dent century, that serious riots oc -urred in the west of England, which to attach the combs, and a comb-pot or stove for heating the 



