Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-30
MACHINES FOR CLOTH CUTTING.
Contrivances That Help to Reduce the
Cost of Making Clothing.
From the New York Sun.

Cost or Making Clothing.
From the New York Sun.
There was a time when all the clothing
worn by men was cut out by hand with a
pair of shears. Now a large proportion Is
cut by machine. With the right sort OF
shears a skillful cutter could out five dou-
BILE thicknesses OF cloth at once. AS an
improvement on this in economy there was
devised knife cutting. Knife cutting is done
with a long, thin and narrow-bladed and
keen-edged knife. much like a straight and
slender sword. 1t is used on a cutting
table especially designed for it.
In this table there is straight, narrow
metal-lned slot extending almost across
the table. In use the knife plays in this
slot There is laid down on the cutting
table cloth in layers of the number of
thicknesses to be cut, with the pattern
marked on the top layer. The knife cutter
does not draw the knife toward him, but
thrusts 1t forward from him, and with an
up and down slicing movement of the
blade through the cloth and through the
slot In the table Working the long, thin,
sharp bladed knife in this way with one
hand. with the other he manipulates the
piled-up mass of cloth to bring the pat
tern line, to which he cuts, over the slot,
and so ne works the knife forward along
the line to the end. Good knife cutters can
cut from Is to 20 thicknesSes of cloth at
once. An expert knife cutter can cut %.
Obviously knife cutting was great econo-
my over cutting with shears.
Then came into use the electric knife
cutter, which Is little wonder. In out
ward appearance 1t somewhat resembles
moderate-szed gourd with a straight
stem. The stem Is the handle, and in the
dubious. gourd-shaped head is the little
electric motor that operates the cutting
knife up and down as needle moves in a
sewing machine, only far faster. Power is
supplied by a flexible wire.
The use of the electric cutting machine
He for tortiP lar inn nY,jxy hat
it shall be gently and truly held to the
pattern line, and thus held and guided the
machine fairly flies through the cloth. An
electric knife cutter will cut all at once
eighty thicknesses OF denim or duck, sixty
thicknesses of overshirt flannel, forty thick
nesses of trousers cloth twenty thick
nesses of oYercoat cloth.
There is a yet later clothing cutting ma
chine that is likely to strike the layman
as more marvellous still. 1t is known as a
bandshaw machine. 1t operates not a
bandsaw, but band knife but works in
precisely the same manner as the familiar
bandsaw of woodworking machinery.
Cloth that is finally to be cut on band
saw machine is first laid down-ia long
stretches, thickness on thickness, until the
required number of thicknesses has been
piled up. Meanwhile, long stretch OF
single thickness of cloth, on another table.
q pattern marker is marking the patterns
on the cloth. Then this single thickness
of cloth, with the patterns thus marked
OH IT. - ldlu On LIS pie Vi manly tulCh-
nesses.
And then a man with an electric knife
cutter walks along this stretch Of piled-up
cloth and cuts 1t into sections that can be
handled on the cutting table of the band
saw machine. where following the lines
on the top layer, the cutter pushes this
block, made up of layer on layer of cloth,
up against the band knife and so cuts all
of the layers in the shape or the pattern
at once.
The knife of sbandsaw machine Is kept
sharp by stone attached to the machine
for that purpose, so that Ii doesn't have
to be taken out to be sharpened. 1t can
be run until 1t Is worn out and breaks. and
each machine is run by its own independ-
ent electric motor. bandsaw machine
will cut sixty double thicknesses of heavy
cloth at once.
In figuring on the cost of producing
clothing cutting that used to be calculat-
ed at fifty cents can be done on a band
machine at a cost OF cent and a
half.