Cotton Combing Machines

PREFACE. THERE can be no doubt that the Heilmann Comber has exercised a most important influence upon the spinning of fine cotton yarns, and high-class yarns of lower numbers, during the fifty years of its existence. It would appear that Heilmann, of Miihlhausen, had so perfected his comber as to make it a practical success, a short time before the great London Exhibition of 1851, and it there attracted a considerable amount of attention on the part of spinners and machine makers. Many of these gentlemen were so favourably impressed with Heilmanns Comber that, amongst them, an important syndicate was formed, and the patent rights of the comber were purchased by this syndicate. Formany years the eminent firm of Messrs. Hetherington, of Manchester, exercised the sole privilege of making the cotton comber, and by this firm it was brought to a high degree of perfection. At the expiration of the patent rights the eminent cotton machine making firms of Messrs. Dobson Barlow, of Bolton, and Messrs. Platt Brothers, of Oldham, also took up the manufacture of the Heilmann Cotton Comber, and both these firms have vastly aided in perfecting its constructional details. Messrs. Asa Lees Co., of Old- ham, have also quite recently begun to manufacture the Heilmann Single Nip Comber, along with the Sliver and Ribbon Lap Machines. In its leading and essential features the Heilmann Cotton Comber has been really very little altered since its introduction, as may be seen by an inspection 109258 of the early form of this comber given at the commencement of Chapter II. Innumerable attempts, however, have been made during the last fifty years both to supersede the Heilmann Comber by others of very different construction, and also to effect very radical alterations in this comber. Several of the best known and most important of these later combing machines are illustrated and described in the last chapter of this treatise, but at the time of cotton comber writing it is questionable whether a single is working in England except single and duplex Heilmann Combers. On the Continent, however, and in America a good many such combers have been successfully worked, and our own English machine makers have experimented with them, but have not yet seen their way to take up their manufacture, although this may soon come to pass. While nearly all the cotton spinning machines of to- day were invented and have been perfected by Englishmen, it is noteworthy that Heilmann was a native of Alsace, and it is probably still more noteworthy that almost all the other cotton combers since invented were originated and perfected also on the Continent. It does not appear that Heilmann himself of whom a pencil sketch is given in the frontispiece lived long enough to benefit much by his great invention, while its development involved a great deal of labour and expense. It has been contended that cotton combers were likely to go out of use on account of the great perfection of modern cotton carding. The author, however, is quite opposed to such an idea, and, on the contrary, holds the opinion that cotton combing will, in the near future, receive far wider adoption than at any time previously...