The welts, which must be cut out into strips of an inch wide, are made in a quite different manner. The leather is extended on a flat wooden table, two feet square-, having its surface covered with small iron rulers, whose width is equal to that of the strips of leather to be cut, and screwed down upon the table, sufficient spaces being left between the rulers to admit the point of a knife. From these rulers several small pins project upwards, which passing through the lea ther, hold it firm. An iron frame, fixed to the table by hinges, folds clown horizontally upon the leather, and is furnished with similar.rulers, whose intervals correspond exactly with those between the fixed rulers, so that the whole leather is divided into strips of the same breadth as the rulers, which are cut out by in troducing the point of a hooked knife between the rulers.
Each of these slips is now to be cut lengthwise into two, by an oblique or bevelled cut, and this is done by the following machine. This machine consists of a pair of brass rollers, one of which, turned by a wheel, gives motion to the other by a pair of equal cog wheels, one wheel being fixed on the end of each roll er. The rollers are placed one above another in an iron frame, the lower one having a groove cut round it to receive the strip of leather previous to its being divided. The upper roller serves to press the strip of leather into the groove. The leather is guided into the groove through a square hole in an iron stem fixed in front of the rollers. On the other side of the rol lers is fixed a fine sharp steel edge, which being placed obliquely to the surface of the leather, cuts it into two slips with bevelled edges, or it passes through the rollers. The texture of the leather is also improved by the pressure of the rollers.
2. Compressing machines for preparing the soles. This machine supplies the place of hammering. It consists of two brass rollers, about five inches long, and live inches in diameter, mounted like the common laminating roller. Instead of screws, however, hich are usually employed to hold down the upper roller, and adjust it to the proper distance from the lower one, two plain cylindrical pins are put into the holes where the screws would have gone, and upon the up per one the power of a strong lever, with a weight, is applied, giving a pressure of 1200 pounds. At the end of the axis of the lower roller is a cog wheel, driven by a pinion on the end of an axis turned by a winch handle. One works at the winch while another puts two soles, with the flesh sides together, between the rollers. An iron plate, with thin edges, is placed. between the soles, which are passed backwards and forwards four or five times, till they'are brought to the proper hardness and solidity.
The heel pieces are too small for this operation, but they are put into a small cell of cast iron, with an iron plate laid above them, and then subjected to the pow erful pressure of a single blow of a screw press.
The heel pieces and the soles are bevelled at the place where they are to be joined, so that when they are united by three or four nails the whole is equally thick. The joints are cut to the proper bevel by a single press. The sole is laid flat on the bevelled edge of a bench faced with iron, and a piece of iron is pressed down upon it by the workman's elbow; the knife is thus properly guided to make the bevelled cut.
3. Thcniachinc for piercing the holes. This machine consists of a semicircular table of cast iron, support ed by a column two feet high, which is connected by a projecting iron bracket to the table, which is thus placed between the workman and the column. Two arms project over the table from the column, and have their extremities formed into sockets, in order to support and allow to descend through them a ver tical square iron slider, into the lower end of which is screwed the piercer. From a treadle moving on a centre pin fixed to the foot of the iron column, there rises an iron rod through a hole in the table, and also through holes in the projecting arm, and at the upper end this rod is joined to a lever moving on a joint at the upper end of the iron column, while the extremity of the lever is connected with the top of the perpen dicular slider. When the foot of the workman presses upon the treadle, the slider and piercer are forced clown towards the table, but never so far as to touch it, and these are raised up again without any effort, by means of a counterpoise and short lever.
The next part of the apparatus is an iron plate or pattern, of the size and shape of the sole, which is united to it by two sharp guage pins fixed in the pat tern. The pattern'is perforated with the same num ber of holes which it is proposed to make in the sole. The pattern, with the sole united to it, is laid on the iron table with the leather uppermost, and brought to a place where an iron stud rising through a hole in the table, and immediately beneath the piercer, en ters every one of the holes of the pattern. The stud being only held tip by a spring, is easily pressed down if the point of the piercer should, after penetrating the leather, happen to come down upon the stud. In this way any number of holes may be pierced merely by putting the stud into the holes of the iron pattern. A small piece of iron is fixed immediately above the leather, which prevents it from being lifted up along with the piercer. There is of course a hole in this piece of iron, through which the piercer moves.