APPENDIX.Description of the Arrangement of Machinery in the Mill of the Standard Spinning Company, Limited, Rochdale.
Itwill be interesting to many persons to have some particulars of the arrangement of one of the most recently constructed Lancashire mills. The Standard Spinning Company’s mill is not only one of the latest but also one of the largest yet built. It consists of five floors and a basement. Each of the main rooms is 250 feet long by 125 feet wide, and adjoining the building on the ground floor is a shed 240 feet long by 40 feet wide, in which most of the cards are placed. The remaining four floors contain the mules. Placed a little apart from the main building is the scutching or blowing room, which is 70 feet by 60 feet, and has placed above it two mixing rooms. The general arrangements are shown in Fig.232, which is a plan of the ground floor, showing the arrangement of the machinery.
Referring now to that figure, and dealing first with the mixing and scutching arrangements, the former are shown in the small detached drawing. The arrangement of mixtures and cross lattices is well shown. The three longitudinal lattices shown convey the cotton to the mixing bin, the cross lattice receiving it from the bale breaker, which is placed in the room above. There are four porcupine feed tables employed, each with an extra length of lattice, which deliver the cotton into the dust trunks, by which it is conveyed to the openers fixed in the ground floor room. Of the opening machines there are four, each of which is fed by its special tube or trunk, as clearly shown. The openers are provided with lap attachments, so that the cotton is formed into that shape at as early a point as possible. Adjoining the openers, with their feed end close to the lap machine, six scutching machines with single beaters are placed. These are fed with three laps, and the cotton is, after being treated by them, again formed into laps, which are fed to the six finisher scutchers placed immediately behind the first six. The finishing machines are fed with four laps each, the doubling being considerable. It will be noticed that the whole of the arrangements are made so that the cotton moves steadily forward without much handling. In this respect the design is admirable, and this part of the work has been carried out by Messrs. Lord Brothers.
The carding machines are of the revolving flat type, made by Messrs. John Hetherington and Sons. There are in actual use 128, and each is made with a cylinder 50 inches diameter, being fed from 40-inch laps. The drawing frames adjoin the carding engines, as shown, and are nine in number, each machine having four heads with seven deliveries each, the latter being indicated by the thick black dots. These machines supply drawn slivers to twelve slubbing machines, fitted with long collars, and each containing 90spindles, their lift being 10 inches. The gauge of these machines is four spindles in 19 inches. The slubbing frames can be distinguished by the dotted lines behind them, which represent the position of the cans, and each of them is fed by the drawing machines placed relatively to them as shown by the curved arrows. It will be noticed that the same readiness of access has been kept in view as in the case of the scutching machines, and the necessary carriage of the cans is reduced to a minimum. In addition to the slubbing frames there are 18 intermediate frames, each containing 132 spindles of 10-inch lift and a gauge of six spindles in 191⁄2inches. The equipment of this room is completed by 52 roving machines of 168 spindles each, 7-inch lift, and a gauge of eight spindles in 201⁄2inches. The whole of the drawing and roving machines are made by Mr. John Mason, and the latter are fitted throughout with Mason’s long collars. Before leaving this department a few words may be said about the driving. The machinery is driven from a second motion shaft, driven by ropes from the engine, the engine house and rope race being indicated in the drawing. The carding machines are driven by counter-shafts from the line shaft shown, as are also the drawing frames. The roving machinery, on the contrary, is all directly driven from the line shafts, two of which are specially arranged for the purpose, as clearly shown. The belts are long and have a half twist, but the advantages of direct driving are so great that this slight disadvantage is not worth taking into account.
The mules are of an improved Parr-Curtis type, made by Messrs. Taylor, Lang, and Co., Limited. They are almost equally divided between twist and weft mules. Of the former there are 44 in all, each of which is made of a spindle gauge of 13⁄8inch. Half of them contain 1,038, and the other half 1,044 spindles each, in all 45,804 twist spindles. There are also 44 mules for weft, the gauge of the spindles being 11⁄8inch. Twenty-two of these contain 1,260 and twenty-two 1,272 spindles each respectively, giving a total of 55,704 weft spindles. The total number of spindles, therefore, in the mill is 101,508. The numbers spun are from 40’s to 50’s twist, and 50’s to 70’s weft.
Fig. 232.
Fig. 232.