In August 1799, Mr. Huddart took a second patent, entitled for an " improved method of registering or forming the strands in the machinery for manufac turing cordage." The machinery described in the patent was erected at Mr. Huddart's ropework at Lime-house. A cable of twenty inches girth made by it was subjected to experiment and found far superior to the cordage made in the usual way. A steam-en gine was employed by Mr. Huddart in the formation of the shroud strand.
In 1800, Mr. Huddart secured in a third patent his right to " certain improvements in tarring and manu facturing cordage." These improvements seem to have been very important. The new method of tarring, &c. here described, consists in registering the strands of ropes during the operation of tarring, which is done in the following manner: The kettle is covered so as to retain the evaporated matter, which thickens the tar if it is allowed to escape, and consequently makes the yarn too pitchy. The heat of the tar is regulated by a thermometer.* The ropes made by this process are said to be particularly compact and firm.
In 1801, Mr. Hoard took a patent for " a portable machine for manufacturing ropes and cordage of any length in a short space, particularly adapted for ship ping." This portable machine consists of separate reels, one containing the full length and number of yarns necessary for making a strand. From this reel the yarns are drawn out to the distance at which the two reels can be placed, and are then attached to the other reel which is empty, one of the reels being moveable on a sledge. The strand between the reels is then twisted, until the reels have advanced towards each other through the usual space, viz. one-fifth. The portion of the strand thus twisted and formed, is wound up on the second reel, and then so much more of the yarns uncoiled from the first reel as will bring the reels to the greatest distance. The rope is made on two reels from the three strands, just as the strand was made from the yarns, with this difference only, that a top is used to regulate the twist of the rope.
In 1801, Mr. A. Thompson took out a patent for " improved machinery for spinning rope yarns, and sail cloth yarns, and for laying and making ropes and cordage." The following is the account given of this patent by Mr. Chapman: " Preparatory to spinning, he draws out the hemp into a long sliver by different sets of chain heckles, moving with progressively greater speed; and in the end the sliver is spun by a spindle with its plyer and bobbin into a thread. The threads remain wound up on their bobbins until want ed to be made into a rope, tarred or untarred. The bobbins are then, according to the number of yarns wanted on a strand, placed so as to form two circles of the same diameter round an open cylinder, consist ing of three hoops or rings, distant from each other the length of a bobbin, and placed near to one end of a long horizontal axis; and, if the rope be to be tarred the yarns are led through a ring of a few inches di ameter, near that end of the described open cylinder which has the spare length of axis projecting from it.
The yarns are then diverged in different degrees so as to form, when passed longitudinally through an open cylindric frame of several feet in length, so many different concentric circles round the axis mentioned, as there are different shells (or concentric coats) of yarns in the strand; and from the further extremity of this last mentioned cylindric frame, the yarns are concentred to one focus at the extremity of the axis, which is there concave, and has an opening through which the yarns pass to the machine which is to twist them into a strand, and draw them forward to be coiled up within itself. At the focal point described, there are nippers to express the tar from the yarns, which is put into them in the following manner, viz: the last mentioned open cylinder between the ring from which the yarns enter to it, and the perforation of the axis where they concentre and quit it, lies over a tar kettle and has a portion of its lower half im mersed in the tar just so far as to imbue either the whole or any portion of the yarns with tar as may be deemed expedient. The cylinder must of course turn round with such convenient degree of speed as not to let the yarns be drawn off the cylinder before it comes in their rotation to pass through the tar. When the full length of strand is made, the twist of which is principally given by the revolution of the frame, in which it is progressively wound up during the pro cess of making, the yarns are cut off; and three of these strands, from so many stationary strand frames (each of which has performed the operation last de scribed, revolving only round its own separate axis,) are concentred together, and pass through the axis of one end of a rotatory frame, which twists them into a rope and coils it up progressively as made, upon a barrel within the frame." In the year 1802, Mr. W. Chapman took out a pa tent " for the application of certain substances either separate or combined as a preservative for cordage." As it had been proved by Duhamel and others, whose experiments we have detailed at the end of this article, that cordage was injured by the operation of tarring, it became a matter of great consequence to ascertain the cause of this, and to obtain the advan tages acknowledged on all hands to belong to tarring, without the evils which accompanied it.