Mat 1, 1865.1 THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE COMB MANUFACTURE. 477 



contour, polish, or other commands to go on its way rejoicing. The 

 cutting apparatus works like a simple copying machine. Place the 

 horr.-plate on the bench beneath, put over the plate a cutter of the 

 shape, size, and outline of any comb you may subsequently require, 

 strike down the press, and the piece is stamped out immediately. 

 Many pieces may, of course, be struck out by one die, and at one opera- 

 tion, the comb-plate being as economically used as possible. More 

 pressing and straightening succeed, then grinding, ready for the " teeth." 

 The mode of operation here depends on the kind of product you are 

 manipulating. For a lady's back or side-comb the " parting-engine " is 

 put in requisition. This is a clever little contrivance, that cuts the 

 teeth as it draws the horn-plate through the machine ; working by a 

 top-handle also, like a copying machine. Each forward or backward 

 motion of the handle brings down a tooth-cutter, and by means of a 

 cogged wheel shifts on the bed on which the plate lays one tooth- 

 distance further till all the teeth are cut. Various sized cutters may be 

 used at one machine. The last tooth at each end of the comb or combs 

 is separated by hand, and then you have two perfect combs, the just-cut 

 teeth fitting into and drawing away from each other, as the fingers of 

 each hand, if they be placed the one between the other, for purposes of 

 illustration. The teeth of horse and other combs, and of those finer 

 ones for the dressing-table, are cut by the circular saw. Suppose one 

 or more very fine-toothed saw to be fixed on a rapidly-revolving shaft 

 (lathe fashion) having a frame in front to hold the horn-plate or plates 

 to be toothed (for several in thickness may be done simultaneously, 

 one lot in front of each saw fixed on the one shaft). This frame is 

 centred or pivoted, so that it can be pressed close to, or be moved further 

 from, the saw-edges ; and has also a lateral motion, acted on by a 

 ratchet-wheel. Now take, say, a dressing-comb, put on the ratchet- 

 wheel that will produce the number, or width and size of teeth you 

 need (for all such wheels are numbered at so many teeth to the inch, 

 and are made to suit the various sizes and shaped products), turn the 

 handle, press down the horn pieces against the revolving saw, and (the 

 pressure being regulated by the mechanism) the teeth are just cut as 

 you want them — in depth, size, &c. — each backward motion of the 

 frame from the saw sending the frame sideways just the distance needed 

 to determine the width of the teeth : thus this repeated action produces 

 perfect teeth. 



When the back of the comb is half-straight and half-curved, or in 

 any other similar form out of the straight line, and the depth of the 

 teeth has therefore to vary in accordance, the pressure of the frame 

 (which holds the horn in process of "toothing") is increased or de- 

 creased against the saw, and so the cut is made deeper or less deep by 

 causing the frame, in its lateral progress, to be affected (in its proximity 

 to the edge of the circular saw) by a projecting arm, that is raised or 

 depressed by its passage over a curved block or comb-back of the shape 

 of the one in manipulation. 



