NEEDLE MANUFACTURE. This branch of industry is supposed to have originated in Spain, from the •circumatance of the name Spanish needles being originally used in England, although the art WWI brought here from Germany. Needles were first made in England about the year 1565, by Elias Crowse or Krause, a German, who settled in London ; or, as others say, by a Spanish negro, who refused to reveal the secrets of his art. Tho manufacture was lost to England for nearly a century, but recovered about 1650, by Christopher Greening, who settled at Long Crendon In Buckinghamshire. The reputation long enjoyed by Whitechapel needles points out the particular locality in London where the manufacture was once carried on. At the present time. the largest numbers of needles are made at RcddiLch In Worces tershire, at liathersago in Derby/dike, and in and near Birmingham.
The manufacturing processes are as follows : —The steel is procured from the Sheffield or Birmingham wire-drawers, in coils of 12 lb. or 14 lb. of wire. The usual sizes of sewing needle. vary to of an Inch, and the wire in selected of corresponding thickness. The wire is cut into lengths equal to two needles ; and these lengths, bciug placed together in a bundle, are brought to a glowing heat, and bound toge• ther by means of iron rings from three to seven inches in diameter, placed at each end of the bundle. This bundle is then placed on a cast-iron table, and rolled to and fro upon it, under the pressure of a flat bar of iron, by which means the wires are made perfectly straight. Several of these wires are then taken by the grinder, and together are pointed on a small dry grindstone. This process requires considerable dexterity for its proper accomplishment, as each wireinust be so held by the grinder as to revolve in contact with the grindstone. It is this dry-grinding which makes the trade of a needle-grinder so injurious to health, through the inhaling of the small particles of steel which are thrown off during the operation. A preservative against this evil has been provided : this consists of a mask of magnetic wire-gauze, worn so as to protect the mouth : the particles of metal, being attracted by this means, are prevented from passing into the lungs. It is but seldom however that the grinders can be induced to wear these masks. Needle-grinding is a well-paid but destructive employment ; some men can grind 10,000 in an hour.
When the pointing (at both ends) is finished, the holes or eyes aro perforated. This operation (on the hand method) is usually performed
by females. The tools employed are, a small anvil fixed on the work bench, a hammer, a finely-pointed and well-tempered steel punch, a pair of plyers, a file, and a block of lead. The woman makes an inden tation on one side by means of the punch and hammer ; the needle is then taken from the anvil, and being placed with the indented side downwards on the block of lead, the perforation is completed by striking with the punch and hammer on the opposite side of the needle. Holding then the needle in the plyers, the bead is somewhat bent, and with the file the guttering is performed, which is the forming of the channel that may be seen on each side where the perforation is made. The head is then smoothed by passing the file over it. Needles to which the name drilled-eyed is applied are perforated in the manner here described, but the additional process is used of smoothing the eye by means of a drill after it is perforated. In this hand method, the wire is cut into two before the perforating, and the end of each piece is slightly flattened with a hammer before the punch and drill are employed.
Machines, however, at first used for large needles, are now generally used for all sizes. The wires, each about three inches long if to form needles known as No. 0, arc subjected to a stamping machine, in which a weight of 30 lb.. is brought down to stamp the gutter on each side of the needle, and to make an indentation partly through the wire ; this is done at the rate of 4000 wires in an hour. A small hand-press, worked by boys, then drives each indentation right through the wire, thus making perforations for the eyes of two needles. In fie. 1, Lb is the double needle, resting on the anvil a, held in its place by d, and pierced by e. The wires are then " spitted ;" that is, two fine wires are made to pass through the two eyes of several dozens of them, to hold them while a man files off the burr left by the stamping. The work man then bends and works the comb of wires to mud fro between his hands, until he breaks each wire into two, leaving an eye or perforation to each half. Fig. 3 shown five different stages of the needle, up to the point where the wire is just about to be severed into two and magnified representations of the last three of those stages. The filer and two spitters prepare 4000 needles in an hour.