BOBBINS are small wooden rollers, flanged at the ends, and bored through the center lengthwise, so that they can be placed on a spindle or skewer. The bobbin on which ordinary sewing-thread is wound, although generally of smell size, is a good example of their prevailing shape. One or two kinds are, however, of a different type; thus the holthin. called in Scotland pint, for delivering the weft front the shuttle, is simply a tapered pin, bored, it may he, throughout, with but the null:Dents of a flange at the• thick end; and the bobbin used for a siinilor purpose in lace-weaving, is merely a thin metal pulley, about the size of a halfpenny. For the machines used in the various spin. ring processes of the textile industries—namely, the :dubbing, the roving, the drawing, and spinning frames, bobbins of various sizes, and in enormous numbers, are required. Some of these are 15 in. long by 5 in. in diameter, an,l diminish in size for each succeed ing process, those for the spinn-yam being scarcely larger than a good-sized bin. There are also winding and warping bobbins for the weaving processes. For some purposes paper tubes have of late years superseded bobbins.
We are so familiar with the neat and convenient thread bobbin, now scent in every house, that we are apt to think it a very 41d invention. Yet people are still living who ran remember when all the sewing-thread used for domestic purposes was wound in the form of halls.
In the making orthread-bobbins, ingenious automatic machinery' is now employed.
Transverse slices of common birch, the wood chiefly used for these, are first cut to the length of the bobbins. From each of these a number of circular bobbin blanks are next
cut out hy an annular saw, a hole being drilled through the center of each at the same tune. These blanks are then fed into a self-acting turning-machine, operating with a compound cutting tool, whose form is the reverse of the profile of the bobbin. One of these machines produces from SO to 100 gross of bobbins per day, while an expert hand. turner could not produce more than eight gross in the same time. As most of the bob bins required for spinning purposes are larger than those required for thread. they are made by turning the barrels and ends separately, and then gluing them together, in order to save wood.
Bobbins are made of various kinds of wood, but principally of birch, beech, ash, and plane tree. Sometimes two kinds are used in the same bobbin; and for some special purposes, bobbins are made entirely of metal, such as iron or tinplate. Of late years, sonic bobbin manufactories have been erected in the highlands of Scotland. in neighbor hoods where birch is plentiful. When we consider that there are now about 40 millions of spindles in the spinning-mills of Great Britain, we get some idea of the prodigious number of bobbins constantly wanted to suyply the tear and wear of those used in the spinning processes. One or two of the larger bobbin manufacturers in England employ about 300 hands.