hand needles are largely made in Germany and England. ix-la-Chapelle is the centre of the industry in Germany, and it is said that the factories of that city alone produce 50,1)00,000 weekly.
Needles for use in various machines are made in the United States, especially those for the ordinary domestic sewing nmehine. At first these needles were by processes similar to those employed for making ordinary ha nd -sew i ng need les, but gradually special machinery has been invented for their manufacture. The process is essentially as follows: The wire is cut into a blank, which is then reduced and pointed, grooved, has its eye punched, is hardened and tempered. hard burr dressed, brass brushed, has its eye polished, undergoes a first inspection. is hard straightened, and then receives the final pointing. In one of making sewing-machine needles by machinery the crucible steel wire from which the needle is formed is first straightened and then fed into a machine which makes the large end of the needle and cuts off the blanks of the lengths required. These blanks after being ground and polished with emery wheels and an emery belt pass from a hopper on to a grooved endless travel ing carrier, where the shank of the needle is formed by the grinding action of au emery wheel.
By successive wheels the needles are ground and pointed and then grooves are cut by steel saws and the eyes punched. They are then heated and hardened and cleaned first by emery and then by wire brushes and burnishing powder applied from a bristle brush. The final pointing is done on a fine emery wheel and the last polishing is acemnplished with crocus and alcohol. A second method differs from that just described in that the steel wire is cut into blanks of about one third the length of the finished needle. After a thorough cleaning these blanks are fed from a hopper into a machine where they are acted upon by steel dies which compress and extend the blank. This process is known as swaging and produces needles which vary slightly in length. This defect, however, is remedied by the action of a clipping and straightening machine which reduces the needles to a uniform size.