IMPROVED MEANS OF TREATING THE "SPUN WASTE" OF WOOL, COTTON, SILK, FLAX, HEMP, AND OTHER FIBROUS SUBSTANCES, SO AS TO RENDER IT SUITABLE FOR RE-WORKING
Year: 1856

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Sherwood at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 20th February
1856.
I, HENRY SHERWOOD, of Esholt, near Leeds, in the County of York, Woollen
and Worsted Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven-
tion for IMPROVED MEANS OF TREATING THE "SPUN WASTE" OF WOOL, COTTON,
SILK, FLAX, HEMP, AND OTHER FIBROUS SUBSTANCES, SO AS TO RENDER IT SUITABLE
FOR RE-WORKING, to be as follows:-
The ordinary mode of treating spun waste, either in the form of yarn or
of rags or cuttings of fabrics, for the purpose of reducing the said waste
to a state to be again worked up into yarns, consists in operating upon the.
materials by means of various machines, which draw out the fibres thereof
whilst they are in their woven, knitted, or entangled state, and in every case
whilst the threads composing them remain twisted or spun. By this mode of
operating great waste is incurred, as the machinery breaks many of the fibres,
and thereby renders a considerable portion of the material nearly useless for
the purposes for which it is intended to be employed.
Instead of forcibly drawing out the fibres of the material when thus closely
bound together, I propose to prepare the fibres for removal by first taking out
the twist, and obviating the tendency to cohesion, by first unravelling the
entangled yarns or rags, and reducing them to the state of separate yarns or
threads.

page_text: To effect this object, I first cleanse the wastes by shaking them, so as to
remove any dust or extraneous matter loosely adhering to them, after which
they are steeped in warm water with alkali or soap, and then washed in hot
water; they are then dried by heat in a machine, in which they are submitted
to a rapid motion, whereby the fabric or mass will be loosened, and the
threads may then be drawn out after being previously moistened with a liquid
preparation, composed of mucilage of linseed or carigeen moss, to which some
alkali may be added. The machine used for thus drawing out the materials
into individual threads consists principally of a rotating cylinder or swift and
a feeding roller or rollers, the swift being furnished with cards or teeth, vary-
ing in form and position on the swift, the feed rollers being a succession of
rollers revolving at varying speeds, or one roller may be employed for holding
the material tight when it is presented to the swift. The yarns are again
washed and dried in the drying machine, when by the foregoing processes, the
crimp, which yarns that have been woven or knitted will have acquired, will be
found to be removed. The fibres of which these yarns are composed will also
be loosened, thus rendering the subsequent operation of separating them
without breakage more easy. The threads must then be laid parallel to
each other, in which process a swift furnished with cards or teeth rotates in
front of a series of rollers partially clothed in the same way with cards, and
made to rotate at varying speeds, or a row or rows of gills arranged to increase
in distance from each other as they approach the swift. The sliver of threads is
stripped from the swift by a contrivance analogous to the doffer of a carding
engine. The ends of the sliver of threads are presented in the opening machine
by means of a tightly holding roller to a swift furnished with cards of a peculiar
form, the twist and cohesion of the thread is removed, and when the whole
length of fibre has been disentangled, it is carried off by the swift and subse-
quently removed by doffing or a brush, or the same contrivance as in the
drawing machine, when they may be delivered in a fit state for re-working.