Cards continued to be imported till the year 1463, when the tradesmen and manufacturers of London, and other parts of England, having made heavy complaints to parliament, of the obstruction to their own employ ment by the introduction or various foreign manufactured wares,an act was passed in the third year of Edward IV. prohibiting wool cards, among various other articles of iron, steel, copper, &c. from being imported into this kingdom.
The hand cards were succeeded by stock cards, and these again by cylinder cards, which were brought into extensive use by Sit Richard Arkwright in Ili 1. (See Co-rrox 11/antefactztre.) Since this period, the con sumption of cards ror cotton mills has beet immense. A v•r) small carding machine wiii contain upwards of 15o,o00 card wires of the coarsest ki• el ; told we have visited an establishment of cotton mills, where 150 of such carding inac him s were in work. *Flinty or forty arc a l( ry CO11110011 riiitohm to find in one Mill; and these are so numerous, as to make. a ter) extensive trade in e and manufacture.
Wool cards ale of a coarser and stronger kind than those used for cotton, but are applied in the same man ner, either on hoards, for hand carding, or on cylinders for a explained Under toe articles Cott ON ItiantlielCtUre and tore. The card wires arc the same for either of t't •se purposes, except in siz.. The wire is bent into a staple, in the manner shewn at Fig. I. of Plate CXI. and the legs of this stap.e are crippled, or bent, in a second di rection, as shown by the figure 1', a hick slims a card wire ready for fixing the leather by, the two being stuck through two holes in the sheet of leather. This fastens the teeth firmly in their places ; and then the bend in the legs, which is called the knee bend, gives the teeth their proper angle of inclination, as is sh”wn in the section of a sheet uI camels at Z, Fig. 1. X is a view of the back of the leather, shelving the arrange ment of the wires; which is such, that the adjacent wires do not fall behind each other, but, by filling up the intermediate spaces between each, renders the cards liner, the teeth being equally dispersed over the surface of the leather.
The cards used in the hand are called sheet cards; and the direction of the wire joining the two legs is pa rallel to the length of the sheet. Sheet cards of a
greater length are also used for the top cards, or lugs of the carding machine, and also for the great cylinders. Another kind arc called fillet carda, being straps or fillets of leather, and the wile stuck across them. It is this kind of fillet which is shown at X, Fig. 1. It is only used in the machine cards, when the fillet is wrapped spirally round the small cylinders to cover all its surface.
The immense number of cards required in the cot ton mills, causes the manufacture of cards to be very extensive; and several very curious machines have been invented for facilitating the processes, though they have not yet come into general use. in the present state of the trade, the principal scats of which are the countries about Glasgow and Leeds, the processes are divided into the preparation of the wires and the leather. The latter is pierced by machinery at the house of the manu factuter, %vim sends it out to the couagers, together with the wire, which they cut and bend by three operations. (one performed by a machine); and the women and children insert them into the holes of the leather. The three operations of making the wires, are, 1st, Cutting to length, •0 or 50 being cut together ; 2d, Douhling, which gives them the form at y, 1.; and, 3d, Giv ing the knee bend Y, which is done by a little machine placed close to the doubler's scat. We saall describe these operations in order, as they follow each other.
Cailing. The workmen clips off tne wires from a coil, or skaine, So or 40 turns ; so that this num ber of wires are cut off at of cc, by a pair of strong shears fixed at the edge of lac work bence, and muted by pressing the foot upon a treadle. A weight oeer pulley is the re-action for opehim.; Mem when the pres sure is relieved. By this means the workman has both hands at liberty: in one he holds the end of the skaine, or bundle of wires, and applies the ends to a gauge, which has an adjustable stop, to determine the length of wire to be cut off from the end, when the end of the gauge is held in contact with the blade of the shears, and one tread cuts them off. By this means 30 or 40 wires are cut at every stroke to the intended length, for which the stop of the gauge is previously adjusted.