278
Class 6.— MANUFACTURING MACHINES AND TOOLS.
North Areas A. B. 10 to 31; C. D. E. 1 to 10, & 19 to 33 ; G. H. 25, 26.
[United
the oil of which is much used. Great Britain is suppliedwith flax from Russia, the Netherlands , Prussia, andFrance; small quantities are also received from America ,Italy, and New South Wales . The cultivation of flax alsoforms an important part of the agriculture of Ireland .
When the crop has been pulled, the bolls or seed-headsare separated by rippling. The ripple is an instrumentlike a comb, with smooth round teeth of iron standingabout 12 inches out of the wood, and placed so closelytogether, that the bolls cannot pass through. By drawingthe flax, a handful at a time, through the teeth of thiscomb, the seed-heads are separated from the stalks.
The flax is then steeped, or retted, in ponds or in run-ning streams, in order that the fibre may be separatedfrom the woody portion of the stem. When the flax isexposed to the influence of dews and rain, instead of beingsteeped, it is called dew retting. In mixed retting the flaxis first macerated in water, and the retting is completedin the air.
When the flax is dry, the woody portion, or the boon,is separated by breaking. The common brake consists offour wooden swords fixed in a frame to which anotherframe with three swords is attached by means of a joint,the blades of one frame playing into the interstices of theother. The flax being placed between the two frames,the upper frame is pushed down upon the lower, and bymoving the flax about, and repeating the operation, theboon is broken into fragments. The boon is also brokenup more expeditiously by passing the flax between rollers.
The object of the next operation, scntching, is to sepa-rate the broken boon. This is done by striking thebruised flax with the edge of a flat wooden sword orscutcher, or when the operation of breaking is ^performedby rollers that of scutching is combined therewith: anumber of arms projecting from a horizontal axis aremade to strike the stalks in a slanting direction until theuseless parts are beaten away.
The flax is next divided into lengths. The wholelength of the flax varies from 26 to 30 or 36 inches. Thepart nearest the root is coarse and strong, the middlepart fine and strong, and the upper part still finer butnot so strong. The flax is divided into three lengths,and the parts from the bottom, middle, and top beingcollected into separate heaps, or stricks, several qualitiesof thread are afterwards formed from them. In somecases flax is divided into four or five lengths, calledmiddle, ends, and middle and end-middles. In makingthese lengths, the ends are required to be rough or jagged;for which purpose the flax is held at both ends, andpassed between two pairs of wheels, situated one pair oneach side of a wheel furnished with oval teeth; the twopairs of wheels hold the flax firmly, while the centrewheel, moving with great velocity, divides or tears theflax asunder.
The flax is next heckled. By the process of heckling,the filaments of flax are cleaned, split, separated intofine fibres, and arranged in parallel order. The shortfibres which are unfit for spinning, together with dust ordirt, are also removed. The heckle, or hackle, is a combwith iron or steel teeth one or two inches long, verysharp apd smooth at the points, and arranged at equaldistances upon a block of wood. A number of hecklesare in use of various degrees of fineness. In using theheckle, the man seizes a stride, or lock of flax, by themiddle, throws it upon the points of the coarse heckleand draws it towards him, at the same time with theother hand spreading the flax and preventing it fromsinking too deeply among the teeth. By this operation
the flax is divided into two parts, namely, the shortfibres forming tow, which remains between the points ofthe heckle, and is from time to time removed, and thelong fibres called line, which remains in the hand of theheckler. One-half of the length of the strick being pro-perly heckled, the other half is turned round and preparedin a similar way. The process is then repeated on thefine heckle, and continued until a fibre of the requireddegree of fineness is produced.
In the heckling machine, a portion of the strick isspread out and held fast in an iron vice or holder. Anumber of these are then conveyed to a sort of revolvingdrum, and hooked on at distances of a few inches fromeach other, their unsupported ends falling on an internaldrum covered with sharp heckling teeth, and revolvingwith considerable velocity, and in a contrary directionto the external one, the motion of which is slow. Whenone machine has performed its work, the holder isthrown off upon a rail from which the machine-minderremoves it to the second heckling machine, where theother side of the strick is heckled: from the second it isremoved to a third, where the points are finer, and so onuntil the line is sufficiently fine.
The tow produced in the above operation being similarto cotton in its fibre, cotton machinery in a modifiedform has been applied to the spinning of tow.
The heckled line is sorted according to its fineness,and is then converted into ribands or slivers. For thispurpose it is arranged upon a feeding-cloth, in such a waythat the ends of the second strick shall reach the middleof the first. As the heckled stricks are thicker in themiddle than at the ends, a uniform thickness is thus pre-served. The flax is passed between one pair of rollers,which deliver it through gills or heckling points to asecond pair, which, moving with greater speed than thefirst, increase the length and diminish the thickness ofthe sliver, which is received into a tin can. A number ofthese cans being filled, the slivers are doubled and drawn,as in the manufacture of cotton yarn. The spinning offlax does not greatly differ from the throstle-spinning ofcotton; but as the fibres of flax have not the same ten-dency to combine together as in cotton, it is necessary tomoisten them with water to make them adhere to eachother during the process of spinning, and also to renderthem more pliable and easy to twist. The water used i seither of the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere ofthe mill, or is warmed to 120° Fahr. The water is con-tained in a trough which extends the whole length ofthe spinning frame.
Yarn is made into linen thread by doubling; it is thenbleached and formed into balls, or wound upon reels intohanks. The size or fineness of linen yarn is reckoned bythe number of leas to the pound weight; this varies fro® 115 to 150 or 240, and from that to 300 and 400.— C. T.]
77 Parker, C. E. & C., Dundee, Scotland —Inventorsand Manufacturers. .
Parker’s patent mathematical power-loom for weayi bnavy sail-cloth and other heavy fabrics. The warp_ nldelivered from four beams at the same time, or ftbobbins without any beams. The delivery of, theis regular and uniform, which secures uniformity 111 ^wefting, the number of weft-threads being the sanieany given space. The taking-up motion is so arI ! au '’ ( }-that the tension or strain on the warp may readilyjusted to yarns of different strengths or cloth of din ^ t()weights, and uniformly maintained from the beginning . (Sthe end of the web. The loom is self-acting in a 0 fparts, and from the commencement to the ternnnatithe web, no change or alteration is required.