Makers of Many Things Part 4

Then, too, a good deal of metal is used in making a shoe, not only the ornamental buckles on dress shoes and the heavy, useful buckles on storm boots, but various pieces that help to make the shoe strong and enduring. There are nails, shanks to strengthen the arch of the shoe, metal shanks to the b.u.t.tons, and eyelets. Not many years ago, eyelets soon wore bra.s.sy, and then the shoe looked old and cheap. They are now enameled, or the top of them is made of celluloid in a color to match the shoe. The tags on lacings and the hooks for holding lacings are also enameled. A "box-toe gum" is used to support the box-toe stiffening. Cement covers the st.i.tches; and many sorts of blacking are used in finis.h.i.+ng the work. It is by no means a simple operation to make a pair of shoes.

At a busy shoe factory it is always "tag day," for when an order is received, the first step in filling it is to make out a tag or form stating how the shoe is to be made up and when it is to be finished.

These records are preserved, and if a customer writes, "Send me 100 pairs of shoes like those ordered October 10, 1910," the manufacturer has only to read the record in order to know exactly what is wanted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Courtesy United Shoe Mchy. Co._

THE GOODYEAR PULLING-OVER MACHINE

This machine cost $1,500,000 and five years of experiment to perfect.

It shapes the forepart of the upper of a shoe over a wooden last.]

Next, the leather is selected, first grade or second grade, according to the price to be paid. The patterns for the uppers are now brought into play--and, by the way, it is no small matter to prepare the hundreds of patterns needed for a new line of shoes in all the different widths and sizes. In some factories the cutting is done by machinery; in others the "upper cutter" lays the leather on a block and cuts around the pattern with a small but very sharp knife. It needs skill and judgment to be a cutter; for a careless workman can easily waste the skins badly by not laying the patterns on to the best advantage. While this work is going on, the linings, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, soles, and other parts are also being prepared, and all these many pieces now meet in the "st.i.tching-room." At the first glance, it does not seem as if the right ones could ever come together, even though they are marked, and sometimes it does happen that a 4a vamp, for instance, is put with 5a quarters, and n.o.body knows the difference until the experienced eye of the foreman notices that something is wrong with the shoe. The uppers of the shoe are now st.i.tched up, and after a careful inspection, they are sent on to the "lasting-room." The "last"

of the earlier times was roughly whittled out, and it was the same for both feet; but the last of to-day is almost a work of art, so carefully is it made and polished. The shoe manufacturers jokingly declare that lasts must be changed three times a day in order to keep up with the fas.h.i.+ons. Feet do not change in form, save when they have been distorted by badly shaped shoes; but in spite of this, people insist upon having their shoes long and narrow, or short and wide, with high heels or with low heels, with broad toes or with pointed toes, as the whim of the moment may be. It really is a big problem for the shoe manufacturers to suit people's fancies and yet give them some degree of comfort.

While the uppers are being st.i.tched, the soles and inner soles and counters have been made ready and brought to the lasting-room. The toe stiffeners and also the counters are now cemented into their places.

The inner sole is tacked to the last, and the uppers are put in place and held there by a tack at the heel. This is done by machines; but their working is simple compared with that of the machine which now takes charge of the half-made shoe. This machine puts out st.u.r.dy little pincers which seize the edge of the uppers, pull it smoothly and evenly into place, and drive a tack far enough in to keep it from slipping. Now comes the welting. A welt is a narrow strip of leather which is sewed to the lower edge of the upper all the way around the shoe except at the heel. This brings the upper, the lip of the inner sole, and the welt together. The inside of the shoe is now smooth and even, but around the outside of the sole is the ridge made by the welt and the sewing, and within the ridge a depression that must be filled up. Tarred paper or cork in a sort of cement are used for this. The shank is fastened into its place and the welt made smooth and even.

The outer sole is coated with rubber cement, put into position under heavy pressure to shape it exactly like the sole of the last, and then sewed to the welt. If it was not for the welt, the outer sole would have to be sewed directly to the inner sole. The nailing and pegging of the old-fas.h.i.+oned shoemaker are also reproduced by the modern machine.

The shoe is still open at the heel; but now the heel parts of both sole and uppers are fastened together; the edges have been nicely trimmed, and next the heels are nailed to the shoe by another machine which does the work at a blow, leaving the nails standing out a little below the lowest lift. Another lift is forced upon these; and that is why the heel of a new shoe shows no signs of nails. The heel is trimmed, and then come the final sandpapering and blackening. The bottom of a new shoe has a peculiar soft, velvety appearance and feeling; and this is produced by rubbing it with fine emery paper fastened upon a little rubber pad. A stamping-machine marks the sole with the name of the manufacturer. Last of all, the shoe is put upon a treeing machine, where an iron foot stretches it into precisely the shape of the wooden last on which it was made.

This is the method by which large numbers of shoes are made, but there are many details which differ. Laced shoes must have tongues as well as eyelets, while b.u.t.toned shoes must have b.u.t.tons and b.u.t.tonholes. "Turned" shoes have no inner sole, but uppers and outer sole are sewed together wrong side out and then turned. In shoemaking, as in all other business, if a manufacturer is to succeed, he must see that there is no waste. He has of course no use for a careless cutter, who would perhaps waste large pieces of leather; but even the tiniest sc.r.a.ps are of value for some purpose.

They can be treated with chemicals, softened by boiling, and pressed into boards or other articles or made into floor coverings. At any rate, they must be used for something. No business is small enough or large enough to endure waste.

X

IN THE COTTON MILL

If you ravel a bit of cotton cloth, you will find that it is made up of tiny threads, some going up and down, and others going from right to left. These threads are remarkably strong for their size. Look at one under a magnifying gla.s.s, in a brilliant light, and you will see that the little fibers of which it is made s.h.i.+ne almost like gla.s.s.

Examine it more closely, and you will see that it is twisted. Break it, and you will find that it does not break off sharp, but rather pulls apart, leaving many fibers standing out from both ends.

Cotton comes to the factory tightly pressed in bales, and the work of the manufacturer is to make it into these little threads. The bales are big, weighing four or five hundred pounds apiece. They are generally somewhat ragged, for they are done up in coa.r.s.e, heavy jute.

The first glance at an opened cotton bale is a little discouraging, for it is not perfectly clean by any means. Bits of leaves and stems are mixed in with the cotton, and even some of the smaller seeds which have slipped through the gin. There is dust, and plenty of it, that the coa.r.s.e burlap has not kept out. The first thing to do is to loosen the cotton and make it clean. Great armfuls are thrown into a machine called a "bale-breaker." Rollers with spikes, blunt so as not to injure the fiber, catch it up and tear the lumps to pieces, and "beaters" toss it into a light, foamy ma.s.s. Something else happens to the cotton while it is in the machine, for a current of air is pa.s.sing through it all the while, and this blows out the dust and bits of rubbish. This current is controlled like the draft of a stove, and it is allowed to be just strong enough to draw the cotton away from the beater when it has become light and open, leaving the harder ma.s.ses for more beating. When it comes out of the opener, it is in sheets or "laps" three or four feet wide and only half an inch thick. They are white and fleecy and almost cloudlike; and so thin that any sand or broken leaves still remaining will drop out of their own weight.

In this work the manufacturer has been aiming, not only at cleaning the cotton and making it fluffy, but also at mixing it. There are many sorts of cotton, some of longer or finer or more curly or stronger fiber than others, some white and some tinged with color; but the cloth woven of cotton must be uniform; therefore all these kinds must be thoroughly mixed. Even the tossing and turning and beating that it has already received is not enough, and it has to go into a "scutcher," three or four laps at a time, one on top of another, to have still more beating and dusting. When it comes out, it is in a long roll or sheet, so even that any yard of it will weigh very nearly the same as any other yard. The fibers, however, are lying "every which way," and before they can be drawn out into thread, they must be made to lie parallel. This is brought about in part by carding. When people used to spin and weave in their own houses, they used "hand cards." These were somewhat like brushes for the hair, but instead of bristles they had wires shaped much as if wire hairpins had been bent twice and put through leather in such a way as to form hooks on one side of it. This leather was then nailed to a wooden back and a handle added. The carder took one card in each hand, and with the hooks pointing opposite ways brushed the cotton between them, thus making the fibers lie parallel. This is just what is done in a mill, only by machinery, of course. Instead of the little hand cards, there are great cylinders covered with what is called "card clothing"; that is, canvas bristling with the bent wires, six or seven hundred to the square inch. This takes the place of one card. The place of the other is filled by what are called "flats," or narrow bars of iron covered with card clothing. The cylinders move rapidly, the flats slowly, and the cotton pa.s.ses between them. It comes out in a dainty white film not so very much heavier than a spider's web, and so beautifully white and s.h.i.+ning that it does not seem as if the big, oily, noisy machines could ever have produced it. In a moment, however, it is gone somewhere into the depths of the machine. We have seen the last of the fleecy sheet, for the machinery narrows it and rounds it, and when it comes into sight again, it looks like a soft round cord about an inch thick, and is coiled up in cans nearly a yard high. This cord is called "sliver."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN A COTTON MILL

The "sliver" coming through the machine, and the "roving" being twisted and wound on bobbins.]

The sliver is not uniform; even now its fibers are not entirely parallel, and it is as weak as wet tissue paper. It now pays a visit to the "drawing-frame." Four or six slivers are put together and run through this frame. They go between four pairs of rollers, the first pair moving slowly, the others more rapidly. The slow pair hold the slivers back, while the fast one pull them on. The result is that when the sliver comes out from the rollers, its fibers are much straighter. This process is repeated several times; and at last when the final sliver comes out, although it looks almost the same as when it came from the carding-machine, its fibers are parallel. It is much more uniform, but it is very fragile, and still has to be handled with great care. It is not nearly strong enough to be twisted into thread; and before this can be done, it must pa.s.s through three other machines. The first, or "slubber," gives it a very slight twist, just enough to suggest what is coming later, and of course in doing this makes it smaller. The cotton changes its name at every operation, and now it is called "roving." It has taken one long step forward, for now it is not coiled up in cans, but is wound on "bobbins," or great spools. The second machine, the "intermediate speeder," twists it a very little more and winds it on fresh bobbins. It also puts two rovings together, so that if one happens to be thin in one place, there is a chance for it to be strengthened by a thicker place in the other. The third machine, the "fine speeder," simply makes a finer roving.

All this work must be done merely to prepare the raw cotton to be twisted into the tiny threads that you see by raveling a piece of cotton cloth. Now comes the actual twisting. If you fasten one end of a very soft string and twist the other and wind it on a spool, you will get a spool of finer, stronger, and harder-twisted string than you had at first. This is exactly what the "ring-spinner" does.

Imagine a bobbin full of roving standing on a frame. Down below it are some rolls between which the thread from the bobbin pa.s.ses to a second bobbin which is fast on a spindle. Around this spindle is the "spinning-ring," a ring which is made to whirl around by an endless belt. This whirling twists the thread, and another part of the machine winds it upon the second bobbin. Hundreds of these ring-spinners and bobbins are on a single "spinning-frame" and accomplish a great deal in a very short time. The threads that are to be used for the "weft"

or "filling" go directly into the shuttles of the weavers after being spun; but those which are to be used for "warp" are wound first on spools, then on beams to go into the loom.

Little children weave together strips of paper, straws, and splints,--"over one, under one,"--and the weaving of plain cotton cloth is in principle nothing more than this. The first thing to do in weaving is to stretch out the warp evenly. This warp is simply many hundreds of tiny threads as long as the cloth is to be, sometimes forty or fifty yards. They must be stretched out side by side and close together. To make them regular, they are pa.s.sed between the teeth of a sort of upright comb; then they are wound upon the loom beam, a horizontal beam at the back of the loom. Here they are as close together as they will be in the cloth. With a magnifying gla.s.s it is easy to count the threads of the warp in an inch of cloth. Some kinds of cloth have a hundred or even more to the inch.

In order to make cloth, the weaver must manage in some way to lower every other one of these little threads and run his shuttle over them, as the children do the strips of paper in their paper weaving.

Then he must lower the other set and run the shuttle over _them_.

"Drawing in" makes this possible. After the threads leave the beam, they are drawn through the "harnesses." These are hanging frames, one in front of the other, filled with stiff, perpendicular threads or wires drawn tight, and with an eye in each thread. Through these eyes the threads of the warp are drawn, the odd ones through one, and the even through the other. Then, keeping the threads in the same order, they pa.s.s through the teeth of a "reed,"--that is, a hanging frame shaped like a great comb as long as the loom is wide; and last, they are fastened to the "front beam," which runs in front of the weaver's seat and on which the cloth is to be rolled when it has been woven.

Each harness is connected with a treadle. The weaver puts his foot on the treadle of the odd threads and presses them down. Then he sends his shuttle, containing a bobbin full of thread, sliding across over the odd threads and under the even. He puts his foot on the treadle of the even threads and sends the shuttle back over the even and under the odd. At each trip of the shuttle, the heavy reed is drawn back toward the weaver to push the last thread of the woof or filling firmly into place.

This is the way cloth is woven in the hand looms which used to be in every household. The power loom used in factories is, even in its simplest form, a complicated machine; but its principle is exactly the same. If colors are to be used, great care is needed in arranging warp and woof. If you ravel a piece of checked gingham, you will see that half the warp is white and half colored; and that in putting in the woof or filling, a certain number of the threads are white and an equal number are colored. If you look closely at the weaving of a tablecloth, you will see that the satin-like figures are woven by bringing the filling thread not "over one and under one," but often over two or three and under one. In drilling or any other twilled goods, several harnesses have to be used because the warp thread is not lowered directly in line with the one preceding, but diagonally.

Such work as this used to require a vast amount of skill and patience; but the famous Jacquard machine will do it with ease, and will do more complicated weaving than any one ever dreamed of before its invention, for it will weave not only regular figures extending across the cloth, but can be made to introduce cl.u.s.ters of flowers, a figure, or a face wherever it is desired. By the aid of this, every little warp thread or cl.u.s.ter of threads can be lifted by its own hooked wire without interfering with any other thread. Cards of paper or thin metal are made for each pattern, leaving a hole wherever the hook is to slip through and lift up a thread. After the cards are once made, the work is as easy as plain weaving; but there must be a separate card for every thread of filling in the pattern, and sometimes a single design has required as many as thirty thousand pattern cards.

The machines in a cotton mill are the result of experimenting, lasting through many years. They do not seem quite so "human" as those which help to carry on some parts of other manufactures; but they are wonderfully ingenious. For instance, the sliver is so light that it seems to have hardly any weight, but it balances a tiny support. If the sliver breaks, the support falls, and this stops the machine.

Again, if one of the threads of the warp breaks when it is being wound on the beam, a slender bent wire that has been hung on it falls. It drops between two rollers and stops them. Then the workman knows that something is wrong, and a glance will show where attention is needed.

Success in a cotton mill demands constant attention to details. A mill manager who has been very successful has given to those of less experience some wise directions about running a mill. For one thing, he reminds them that building is expensive and that floor s.p.a.ce counts. If by rearranging looms s.p.a.ce can be made for more spindles, it is well worth while to rearrange. He tells them to study their machines and see whether they are working so slowly that they cannot do as much as possible, or so fast as to strain the work. He bids them to keep their gearings clean, to be clear and definite in their orders, and to read the trade papers; but above everything else to look out for the little things, a little leak in the mill dam, a little too much tightness in a belt, or the idleness of just one spindle. Herein lies, he says, one of the great differences between a successful and an unsuccessful superintendent.

Weaving as practiced in factories is a complicated business; but whether it is done with a simple hand loom in a cottage or with a big power loom in a great factory, there are always three movements. One separates the warp threads; one drives the shuttle between them; and one swings the reed against the filling thread just put in.

XI

SILKWORMS AND THEIR WORK

About silk there is something particularly agreeable. There are few people who do not like the sheen of a soft silk, the sparkle of light on a "taffeta," and the richness of the silk that "can stand alone."

Its delicate rustle is charming, and the "feel" of it is a delight.

It has not the chill of linen, the deadness of cotton, or the "scratchiness" of woolen. It pleases the eye, the ear, and the touch.

The caterpillars of a few b.u.t.terflies and of many moths are spinners of fibers similar to silk. Among these last is the beautiful pale-green lunar moth. Spiders spin a l.u.s.trous fiber, and it is said that a lover of spiders succeeded, by a good deal of petting and attention, in getting considerable material from a company of them.

Silkworms, however, are the only providers of real silk for the world.

Once in a while glowing accounts are published of the ease with which they can be raised and the amount of money which can be made from them with very small capital. This business, however, like all other kinds of business, requires close attention and skill if it is to be a success. An expert has said that it needs more time to build a spool of silk than a locomotive.

The way to begin to raise silkworms is first of all to provide something for them to eat. They are very particular about their bill of fare. The leaf of the osage orange will answer, but they like much better the leaf of the white mulberry. Then send to a reliable dealer for a quarter of an ounce of silkworm eggs. That sounds like a small order, but it will bring you nine or ten thousand eggs, ready to become st.u.r.dy little silkworms if all goes well with them. Put them on a table with a top of wire netting covered with brown paper, and keep them comfortably warm. In a week or two, there will appear some little worms about an eighth of an inch long and covered with black hairs.

These tiny worms have to become three inches or more in length, and they are expected to accomplish the feat in about a month. If a boy four feet tall should grow at the silkworm's rate for one month, he would become forty-eight feet tall. It is no wonder that the worms have to make a business of eating, or that the keeper has to make a business of providing them with food. They eat most of the time, and they make a queer little crackling sound while they are about it. They have from four to eight meals a day of mulberry leaves. The worms from a quarter of an ounce of eggs begin with one pound a day, and work up to between forty and fifty. Silkworms like plenty of fresh air, and if they are to thrive, their table must be kept clean. A good way to manage this is to put over them paper full of holes large enough for them to climb through. Lay the leaves upon the paper; the worms will come up through the holes to eat, and the litter on their table can be cleared away. As the worms grow larger, the holes must be made larger. It is no wonder that their skins soon become too tight for them. They actually lose their appet.i.te for a day or two, and they slip away to some quiet corner under the leaves, and plainly wish there were no other worms to bother them. Soon the skin comes off, and they make up for lost time so energetically that they have to drop their tight skins three times more before they are fully grown. Wet mulberry leaves must not be given them, or they will become sick and die, and there will be an end of the silkworm business from that quarter-ounce of eggs. They must have plenty of room on their table as well as in their skins. At first a tray or table two feet long and a little more than one foot wide will be large enough; but when they are full-grown, they will need about eighty square feet of table or shelves. At spinning time, even this will not be enough.

After the worms have shed their skins four times and then eaten as much as they possibly can for eight or ten days, they begin to feel as if they had had enough. They now eat very little and really become smaller. They are restless and wander about. Now and then they throw out threads of silk as fine as a spider's web. They know exactly what they want; each little worm wants to make a coc.o.o.n, and all they ask of you is to give them the right sort of place to make it in. When they live out of doors in freedom, they fasten their coc.o.o.ns to twigs; and if you wish to give them what they like best, get plenty of dry twigs and weave them together in arches standing over the shelves.

Pretty soon you will see one worm after another climb up the twigs and select a place for its coc.o.o.n. Before long it throws out threads from its spinneret, a tiny opening near the mouth, and makes a kind of net to support the coc.o.o.n which it is about to weave.

The silkworm may have seemed greedy, but he did not eat one leaf too much for the task that lies before him. There is nothing lazy about him; and now he works with all his might, making his coc.o.o.n. He begins at the outside and shapes it like a particularly plump peanut of a clear, pale yellow. The silk is stiffened with a sort of gum as it comes out of the spinneret. The busy little worm works away, laying its threads in place in the form of a figure eight. For some time the coc.o.o.n is so thin that one can watch him. It is calculated that his tiny head makes sixty-nine movements every minute.

The covering grows thicker and the room for the silkworm grows smaller. After about seventy-two hours, put your ear to the coc.o.o.n, and if all is quiet within, it is completed and the worm is shut up within it. Strange things happen to him while he sleeps in the quiet of his silken bed, for he becomes a dry brown chrysalis without head or feet. Then other things even more marvelous come to pa.s.s, for in about three weeks the little creature pushes the threads apart at one end of the coc.o.o.n and comes out, not a silkworm at all, but a moth with head and wings and legs and eyes. This moth lays hundreds of eggs, and in less than three weeks it dies.

This is what the silkworm will do if it is left alone; but it is the business of the silk-raiser to see that it is not left alone. About eight days after the coc.o.o.n is begun, it is steamed or baked to kill the chrysalis so that it cannot make its way out and so spoil the silk. The quarter of an ounce of eggs will make about thirty pounds of coc.o.o.ns. Now is the time to be specially watchful, for there is nothing in which rats and mice so delight as a plump, sweet chrysalis; and they care nothing whatever for the three or four thousand yards of silk that is wound about each one.

To take this silk off is a delicate piece of work. A single fiber is not much larger than the thread of a cobweb, and before the silk can be used, several threads must be united in one. First, the coc.o.o.n is soaked in warm water to loosen the gum that the worm used to stick its threads together. Ends of silk from half a dozen or more coc.o.o.ns are brought together, run through a little hole in a guide, and wound on a reel as one thread. This needs skill and practice, for the reeled silk must be kept of the same size. The coc.o.o.n thread is so slender that, of course, it breaks very easily; and when this happens, another thread must be pieced on. Then, too, the inner silk of the coc.o.o.n is finer than the outer; so unless care is taken to add threads, the reeled silk will be irregular. The water must also be kept just warm enough to soften the gum, but not too hot.

The silk is taken off the reel, and the skeins are packed up in bales as if it were of no more value than cotton. Indeed, it does not look nearly so pretty and attractive as a lap of pure white cotton, for it is stiff and gummy and has hardly any l.u.s.ter. Now it is sent to the manufacturer. It is soaked in hot soapy water for several hours, and it is drawn between plates so close together that, while they allow the silk to go through, they will not permit the least bit of roughness or dirt to pa.s.s. If the thread breaks, a tiny "faller," such as are used in cotton mills, falls down and stops the machine. The silk must now be twisted, subjected to two or three processes to increase its l.u.s.ter, and dyed,--and if you would like to feel as if you were paying a visit to a rainbow, go into a mill and watch the looms with their smooth, brilliant silks of all the colors that can be imagined. After the silk is woven, it is polished on l.u.s.tering machines, singed to destroy all bits of free fibers or lint, freed of all threads that may project, and scoured if it is of a light color; then sold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Courtesy Cheney Bros._