427 
Sope Making. 
wheel, or engine, at the top end ; the wheel, or reel, on 
which the cord or wire laps, being fixed to the diameter 
of eighteen inches and a half, for a rope of three inches 
circumference ; and both wheels, or engines, being turn^ 
ed with the same velocity, or, in other words a revolution 
being made of the wheels at the bottom and top end of 
the ropery, at one and the same time (which, as they are 
in sight of each other, may easily be done), the cord, or 
wire, will then turn off the reel, and govern the speed of 
the top, which will produce a rope nearly regular, in twist 
and in hardness. To make a shroud-laid rope of greater 
or less circumference than the third- inch rope above des- 
cribed, the diameter of the wheel, or reel, will require to 
be lessened or enlarged two inches in diameter for every 
three-eighths of an inch the ropes are more or less in cir- 
cumference, in which case, the twist of the rope will be 
found tolerably near the twist of a hard-laid rope, and close 
a cable-laid rope on these wheels, or make a shroud-laid 
rope of larger circumference than four inches and a half. 
The three strands may be put upon the nut- wheel, at the 
bottom end of the ropery, containing twenty-eight teeth ; 
and the single strands upon the wheel, at the top end, with 
fifty teeth ; in which case the udieel, or reel, will be fixed 
to half the diameter of the above directions. If the 
above-mentioned proportion of teeth does not harden 
the rope, to tiie discretion of the ropemaker, the nuts 
at the top-end, with a tooth less each, will make the 
ropes harder ; and with a tooth more each will make 
them softer; and lessening, or enlarging the wheel, 
or reel, gives more or less twists in the rope. The 
ropes being thus made, by a regular system, will, if the 
spinning be ’Well done, and if the rope-maker, in getting 
the strands to the full hardness, be careful to cease twist- 
ing when the moveable wheel, or engine, at tlie bottom 
eiid of the roper}'^, is at one and the same place with e^ch 
