NEEDLES are instruments of metal, or other material, for the purpose of carrying the thread in sewing, embroidery, knitting, netting, and other similar operations. They are generally made of metal, but bone, ivory, and wood are also used; for ordinary needle• work, called sewing, they are made of fine steel, and are too well known to need des•rip. Lion; for other kinds of work they are often much larger and differently formed, according to the requirements of the work to be done.
Needle-making is an important branch of industrial art, and it has of late years attained to extraordinary perfection. Small bars of steel, not thicker than a good-sized bristle, can be made perfectly round, pointed at one end with wonderful accuracy, pierced at the other end with an oval hole, the sides of which are so smoothly rounded that there is no friction upon the thread, and the whole of each instrument, not more than an inch in length, beautifully polished, and sold at less than a'shilling per hundred, notwithstanding that a large part of the operations required in their manufacture are menial. The first operation, after the wire has been selected and its thickness accu rately ganged, is to cut it into eight-feet lengths; this is done by winding it in a coil of 16 ft. circumference, and then cutting this coil into exact halves with powerful tinting shears. The coiling of the wire is so managed that there are 100 pieces in each half when cut; the bundles of 100 wires are again cut into the necessary lengths for two needles; and so well arranged are the cutting shears, that a man can easily cut enough for 1.000,000 needles in a day of 12 hours. The pieces cut from a coil, although now reduced to the length of two small needles, are nevertheless somewhat curved; they are therefore col lected into bundles of about 6,000. and placed in two iron which hold them loosely together; they are then slightly softened by firing, and are laid on an iron plate or bench, and are pressed with a small curved bar in two or three positions, by which the operator manages to make them all perfectly straight. They are now taken to the grinder. who Fits in front of his grindstone upon a seat which isliollow, and forms an air-shaft open towards the stone;•throngh this a 'Wit of air 19 forced when the 'Owe] is in motion, which carries away from the grinder every particle of tire subtic dust from the needle points and the stone. Before this humane invention, which has rendered the operation quite innocuous, the loss of life in this manufacture was more serious than in any other industrial occupation. The operator, with great tact, holds about 25 of the wires, by means of his thumb pressed against the inside of his fingers, the wires, which are held straight and applied to the grindstone, being dexterously turned round on the inside of the hand by means of the thumb, until they are ground sharp at one end; they are then reversed, and the other ends are similarly sharpened. They are next taken to the im,pressing machine, which in principle consists of a weight hanging to a block, which is raised by the hand and let fall at pleasure; the wires are placed in succession under this, so that the falling weight strikes each wire exactly in the middle, and there flattens it. The hardening of the flattened part by the blow is removed in the annealing oven, and the holes are next punched, two in each flattened portion.. These are either done by hand-punches worked by children, who acquire great nicety in the operation, or by a machine on the same principle as the impressing machine; this not only punches the two holes, but also forms a small cross-cut between them, which is otherwise made by a tile.
At tins cross-cut the wire is broken in two, and may now be regarded as two rudely-formed needles, each having a flattened and pierced head. A number of these are now threaded (spited) on a thin wire, and are placed in a vise, .which holds them firm and straight, so that the workman can file the heads on the top and sides, so as to remove all the burred edge. The next process is oil tempering, for which. they are made hot, and immersed iu sufficient oil to coat them thoroughly; the oil is then burned off, an operation which renders the needles brittle. They are then weighed out into lots of about 500,000 each, and after being shaken so that they lie side by side, they are laid on a square piece of strong canvas, and a quantity of sand and emery-powder being mixed with them, they are corded up very securely into a long roll from 18 in. to 2 ft. in length. A number of these rolls or bundles are placed on a movable wooden slab, in the scouring machine, and over them is placed another heavily weighted slab. The action of the machine, of which these slabs form part, is to move them backward and forward in opposite direc tions, the bundles of needles acting as rollers, the pressure upon which works the inclosed needles, sand, etc., together, so that after 8 to 10 hours, which this operation occupies, instead of the blackened appearance they had when it commenced, they are white and silvery-looking. They are now removed to an exactly similar machine, where they are polished. Here they are separated from the sand and emery, and are removed to other canvas squares; and when mixed up with a paste of putty-powder and oil, are again corded up, and made to roll backward and forward under the weighted wooden slab of the poJishing machine for four hours more. The next process is to remove them from the canvas, and agitate them in a vessel with soft-soap and water, to remove the ; oil and putty-powder, and next to dry them in ash-wood saw-dust. They are now highly polished and well tempered, but not all of exactly the same length, nor are the . eyes perfect; they are therefore passed to a person who, by nice management of a small gauge, sorts them very quickly into certain lengths (evening), and arranges them all in one direction (heading). They then pass on to be drilled, an operation requiring great nicety, as the small oval holes have to IN so polished all round, as not to cause any uric-, Lion on the thread in sewing with them; a clever workman will drill and polish the of 70,000 needles per week, The needle is now practically finished, but many minor operations are considered necessary to produce high-finish; these we purposely omit, to , avoid complicating our description. It is, however, worthy of remark, that this little instrument, which costs so labor for its formation, has by these operations acquiredkimmense value. The wire of which the ordinarily-sized needles :ire made is so thin. that 51 lbs. go to form 74,000 needles. Of ordinary sized needles, 2a millions weigh 3 cwt., and are worth rather more than £200, although the steel wire of which' they were made was only worth £14 at the commencement of the manufacture. English made needles are the best in the world, and are chiefly made in liedditch and the neigh borhood, where, and in other parts of the county of Worcester, this manufacture, employs a large number of persons. •