COMBING. Prior to the development of mechanical means of fibre-spinning, each fibre was treated in accordance with its nature—more particularly its length. Thus the silk fibre 400 to 600yd. long was readily reeled. The cotton fibre--often not more than an inch in length—was spun on what is known as the spindle draft system, a comparatively thick sliver of the material, usually drawn from a bundle of the raw material, being actually attenuated into a finer sliver while twist is being inserted, the twist simply controlling the fibres and keeping the thread intact while the fibres are gliding upon one another. On the attenuation's being completed much more twist is inserted, usually to give the maximum strength to the thread. Two fibres—flax and long wool—did not lend them selves to either of these processes, being either too short for reel ing or too long for spindle-draft spinning. For flax a process termed "scutching" or "dressing" has been evolved for wool a process termed "combing." It is interesting to note, however, that the dressing process for flax has been successfully applied to what is termed waste or spun silk, and the combing process (orig inally worked out for wool) even to comparatively short cotton fibres—for reasons which are obvious when the process of combing is understood.
As Bishop Blaize, a saint of the 4th or 5th century, is the patron saint of the wool-combers, it seems probable that the craft goes back at least into mediaeval times. In its latest form as a handi craft, wool-combing was performed with two combs, one of which, after being heated, was fixed to the "pad-post." The wool to be combed was then lashed by hand into the teeth of this fixed comb, and the fringe hanging from it was then combed by drawing the other comb, also heated, at right angles across the face of the pad post comb, gradually straighten ing out all the fibrous mass. Af ter feeding back into the pad-post ;:omb and again combing, the ulti mate result was that both combs held equally a straightened fringe Df wool fibres. The wool was then drawn off each comb in suc zession, by hand, as a continu DUS sliver some three to five feet long, leaving in the comb "milk ings" and "backings" which were combed with the subsequent lot, and "noil"—the short fibres actually lef t in the comb teeth, which were too short to comb again. The combed slivers were then broken up and again combed, this operation being termed "straightening"; little noil was taken out, but the long fibres were arranged longitudinally in a neat sliver from which a parallel fibre thread—termed a worsted thread—could be spun. Hand combing was practised as an established craft until about 186o when the development of the machine comb, interacting with the supply of merino wool from Australia (Botany bay—hence the term Botany wool), resulted in the evolution of an industry turn ing over many times the weight of material that had been turned over by the hand-combers.
Other inventors followed Cartwright, but it was not until Heil man, Lister and Holden were at work that the comb showed signs of being a practical success. Heilman and Lister were both prac tically successful with their "tuft" combs, Heilman employing the vertical and Lister the horizontal circular positions. In a great lawsuit Heilman proved himself to be the first inventor of the "tuft" idea; Lister promptly bought him out and suppressed his vertical cylindrical comb in Britain from about 1854 to 19oo, when, French combers having established a large trade with this comb on the Continent and having become the envy of their Brit ish competitors, attempts were made to wrest some of the finest wool trade from them, and this necessitated the reintroduction of the Heilman comb for wool. In the meantime, however, a Mr. Donisthorpe, working in Leeds with a man named Noble, evolved another type—now termed the "Noble" comb (see WORSTED MANUFACTURE)-and this has proved the best for crossbred and medium Botany wools. It consists of Cartwright's horizontal large circle, with two smaller horizontal circles which work inside the larger circle, touching tangentially, and thus forming two combing positions. The wool is dabbed into the pins of the touching circles, and as in revolving these separate. the combed wool lies be tween them as a continuous fringe on the inside of the large circle and the outside of the small circle. These two fringes are drawn off by vertical rollers, united together and also to the two corre sponding slivers from the other combing position, thus forming what is termed the "top." The short fibres, termed "noil," rest in the teeth of the two small circles inside the large circle. This noil is thrown out with "noil-knives" so that the small combs are freed from fibre in order to proceed continuously with the combing oper ation in conjunction with the larger circle which has been freed by the drawing-off rollers. The wool which has to follow on for combing is now lifted out of the pins of the large comb, a little more is drawn off and dabbed into the pins of both large and small circles where they impinge, and the combing operation is con tinued. The Noble comb is not a "tuft" comb, and, with the excep tion of the dabbing mechanism, is circular and continuous in all its motions. Thus of the practical combs employed for both wool and cotton to-day, three—viz., Lister's, Holden's and Heilman's are "tuft" combs and one—the Noble—a non-tuft comb. All, however, deliver continuous combed slivers. The Heilman cotton comb, specially designed for the purpose by Nasmith and other cotton engineers, is the only type which has ever been successfully employed for cotton. Only the best cottons—Sea Island. Egyptian and the very hest American—are combed. (A. F. B.)