280 Tlie Philippine Journal of Science lais 



Table I shows that the capacity of the crusher as operated 

 in these tests is much below that given by the makers, perhaps 

 due to the fact that the husks were fed in too large pieces. We 

 were unable to operate the machine with a full hopper, A full- 

 hopper feed invariably clogged the machine because insufficient 

 power was transmitted to the roll-drive pulley; the belt would 

 slip excessively, and finally jump the pulley. This of course 

 could never be tolerated when operating commercially. 



The next operation recommended by the makers of the ma- 

 chines after crushing the husk sections is the extraction of the 

 fiber by means of extracting machines generally worked in pairs 

 in order to separate the brush fibers from the spinning fibers. 

 The machines are practically identical, except that the one 

 called the "Breaker," into which the crushed husks are fed, 

 has a scutch wheel fitted with wider-spaced teeth than the other, 

 which is called the "Finisher." The crushed husks are intro- 

 duced between slowly revolving, fluted feeding rolls that press 

 them against a wooden drum studded with steel pins that 

 scratch them to pieces. The partially disintegrated husk is 

 fed into the finisher, and this completes the extraction of the 

 fiber. 



Neither of the machines was tested at the Bureau of Science. 

 Instead, these two machines were substituted by a special fiber- 

 extracting machine that is recommended for defibering young 

 and immature husks, or husks of light growth, or when one does 

 not desire to keep the brush fiber separate from the spinning 

 fiber. This special fiber-extracting machine works on the same 

 principle as the breaker and finisher and, like them, consists 

 mainly of a drum studded with steel teeth, revolving within a 

 sheet-iron housing, and a feeding device for holding the husks 

 while pressed against the drum. The principal difference be- 

 tween this machine and the others consists in a lattice conveyor 

 apron upon which the husks are thrown and on which they are 

 slowly carried forward until seized by the feed rolls. Only a 

 small portion of the husks was completely defibered after the 

 first pass, and many had to be fed through the machine four or 

 five times in order to effect a fair degree of disintegration. 

 Even then there remained groups of filaments or husk frag- 

 ments, that were firmly held together by the pulp tissue or by 

 the tough epidermis. The fibers obtained by each pass were 

 kept separate. The coarse filaments particularly were frequently 

 injured by having their ends broken off or frayed, perhaps in 

 part due to insufficient preliminary soaking. The manufac- 



