Linen

Hackling.—This first preparatory process consists not only in combing out, disentangling and laying smooth and parallel the separate fibres, but also serves to split up and separate into their ultimate filaments the strands of fibre which, up to this point, have been agglutinated together. The hackling process was originally performed by hand, and it was one of fundamental importance, requiring the exercise of much dexterity and judgment. The broken, ravelled and short fibres, which separate out in the hackling process, form tow, an article of much inferior value to the spinner. A good deal of hand-hackling is still practised, especially in Irish and continental mills; and it has not been found practicable, in any case, to dispense entirely with a rough preparation of the fibre by hand labour. In hackling by hand, the hackler takes a handful or “strick” of rough flax, winds the top end around his hands, and then, spreading out the root end as broad and flat as possible, by a swinging motion dashes the fibre into the hackle teeth or needles of the rougher or “ruffer.” The rougher is a board plated with tin, and studded with spikes or teeth of steel about 7 in. in length, which taper to a fine sharp point. The hackler draws his strick several times through this tool, working gradually up from the roots to near his hand, till in his judgment the fibres at the root end are sufficiently combed out and smoothed. He then seizes the root end and similarly treats the top end of the strick. The same process is again repeated on a similar tool, the teeth of which are 5 in. long, and much more closely studded together; and for the finer counts of yarn a third and a fourth hackle may be used, of still increasing fineness and closeness of teeth. In dealing with certain varieties of the fibre, for fine spinning especially, the flax is, after roughing, broken or cut into three lengths—the top, middle and root ends. Of these the middle cut is most valuable, being uniform in length, strength and quality. The root end is more woody and harsh, while the top, though fine in quality, is uneven and variable in strength. From some flax of extra length it is possible to take two short middle cuts; and, again, the fibre is occasionally only broken into two cuts. Flax so prepared is known as “cut line” in contradistinction to “long line” flax, which is the fibre unbroken. The subsequent treatment of line, whether long or cut, does not present sufficient variation to require further reference to these distinctions.

In the case of hackling by machinery, the flax is first roughed and arranged in stricks, as above described under hand hackling. In the construction of hackling machines, the general principles of those now most commonly adopted are identical. The machines are known as vertical sheet hackling machines, their essential features being a set of endless leather bands or sheets revolving over a pair of rollers in a vertical direction. These sheets are crossed by iron bars, to which hackle stocks, furnished with teeth, are screwed. The hackle stocks on each separate sheet are of one size and gauge, but each successive sheet in the length of the machine is furnished with stocks of increasing fineness, so that the hackling tool at the end where the flax is entered is the coarsest, say about four pins per inch, while that to which the fibre is last submitted has the smallest and most closely set teeth. The finest tools may contain from 45 to 60 pins per inch. Thus the whole of the endless vertical revolving sheet presents a continuous series of hackle teeth, and the machines are furnished with a double set of such sheets revolving face to face, so close together that the pins of one set of sheets intersect those on the opposite stocks. Overhead, and exactly centred between these revolving sheets, is the head or holder channel, from which the flax hangs down while it is undergoing the hackling process on both sides. The flax is fastened in a holder consisting of two heavy flat plates of iron, between which it is spread and tightly screwed up. The holder is 11 in. in length, and the holder channel is fitted to contain a line of six, eight or twelve such holders, according to the number of separate bands of hackling stocks in the machine. The head or holder channel has a falling and rising motion, by which it first presents the ends and gradually more and more of the length of the fibre to the hackle teeth, and, after dipping down the full length of the fibre exposed, it slowly rises and lifts the flax clear of the hackle stocks. By a reciprocal motion all the holders are then moved forward one length; that at the last and finest set of stocks is thrown out, and place is made for filling in an additional holder at the beginning of the series. Thus with a six-tool hackle, or set of stocks, each holder full of flax from beginning to end descends into and rises from the hackle teeth six times in travelling from end to end of the machine. The root ends being thus first hackled, the holders are shot back along an inclined plane, the iron plates unclamped, the flax reversed, and the top ends are then submitted to the same hackling operation. The tow made during the hackling process is carried down by the pins of the sheet, and is stripped from them by means of a circular brush placed immediately under the bottom roller. The brush revolves in the same direction as, but quicker than the sheet, consequently the tow is withdrawn from the pins. The tow is then removed from the brush by a doffer roller, from which it is finally removed by a doffing knife. This material is then carded by a machine similar to, but finer than, the one described under Jute (q.v.). The hackled flax, however, is taken direct to the preparing department.

Preparing.—The various operations in this stage have for their object the proper assortment of dressed line into qualities fit for spinning, and the drawing out of the fibres to a perfectly level and uniform continuous ribbon or sliver, containing throughout an equal quantity of fibre in any given length. From the hackling the now smooth, glossy and clean stricks are taken to the sorting room, where they are assorted into different qualities by the “line sorter,” who judges by both eye and touch the quality and capabilities of the fibre. So sorted, the material is passed to the spreading and drawing frames, a series or system of machines all similar in construction and effect. The essential features of the spreading frame are: (1) the feeding cloth or creeping sheet, which delivers the flax to (2) a pair of “feed and jockey” rollers, which pass it on (3) to the gill frame or fallers. The gill frame consists of a series of narrow hackle bars, with short closely studded teeth, which travel between the feed rollers and the drawing or “boss and pressing” rollers to be immediately attended to. They are, by an endless screw arrangement, carried forward at approximately the same rate at which the flax is delivered to them, and when they reach the end of their course they fall under, and by a similar screw arrangement are brought back to the starting-point; and thus they form an endless moving level toothed platform for carrying away the flax from the feed rollers. This is the machine in which the fibres are, for the first time, formed into a continuous length termed a sliver. In order to form this continuous sliver it is necessary that the short lengths of flax should overlap each other on the spread sheet or creeping sheet. This sheet contains four or six divisions, so that four or six lots of overlapped flax are moving at the same time towards the first pair of rollers—the boss rollers or retaining rollers. The fibre passes between these rollers and is immediately caught by the rising gills which carry the fibre towards the drawing rollers. The pins of the gills should pass through the fibre so that they may have complete control over it, while their speed should be a little greater than the surface speed of the retaining rollers. The fibre is thus carried forward to the drawing rollers, which have a surface speed of from 10 to 30 times that of the retaining rollers. The great difference between the speeds of the retaining and drawing rollers results in each sliver being drawn out to a corresponding degree. Finally all the slivers are run into one and in this state are passed between the delivery rollers into the sliver cans. Each can should contain the same length of sliver, a common length being 1000 yds. A bell is automatically rung by the machine to warn the attendant that the desired length has been deposited into the can. From the spreading frame the cans of sliver pass to the drawing frames, where from four to twelve slivers combined are passed through feed rollers over gills, and drawn out by drawing rollers to the thickness of one. A third and fourth similar doubling and drawing may be embraced in a preparing system, so that the number of doublings the flax undergoes, before it arrives at the roving frame, may amount to from one thousand to one hundred thousand, according to the quality of yarn in progress. Thus, for example, the doublings on one preparing system may be 6 × 12 × 12 × 12 × 8 = 82,944. The slivers delivered by the last drawing frame are taken to the roving frame, where they are singly passed through feed rollers and over gills, and, after drafting to sufficient tenuity, they are slightly twisted by flyers and wound on bobbins, in which condition the material—termed “rove” or “rovings”—is ready for the spinning frame.2

Spinning.—The spinning operation, which follows the roving, is done in two principal ways, called respectively dry spinning and wet spinning, the first being used for the lower counts or heavier yarns, while the second is exclusively adopted in the preparation of fine yarns. The spinning frame does not differ in principle from the throstle spinning machine used in cotton manufacture. The bobbins of flax rove are arranged in rows on each side of the frame (the spinning frames being all double) on pins in an inclined plane. The rove passes downwards through an eyelet or guide to a pair of nipping rollers between which and the final drawing rollers, placed in the case of dry spinning from 18 to 22 in. lower down, the fibre receives its final draft while passing over and under cylinders and guide-plate, and attains that degree of tenuity which the finished yarn must possess. From the last rollers the now attenuated material, in passing to the flyers receives the degree of twist which compacts the fibres into the round hard cord which constitutes spun yarn; and from the flyers it is wound on the more slowly rotating spool within the flyer arms, centred on the top of the spindle. The amount of twist given to the thread at the spinning frame varies from 1.5 to 2 times the square root of the count. In wet spinning the general sequence of operations is the same, but the rove, as unwound from its bobbin, first passes through a trough of water heated to about 120° Fahr.; and the interval between the two pairs of rollers in which the drawing out of the rove is accomplished is very much shorter. The influence of the hot water on the flax fibre appears to be that it softens the gummy substance which binds the separate cells together, and thereby allows the elementary cells to a certain extent to be drawn out without breaking the continuity of the fibre; and further it makes a finer, smoother and more uniform strand than can be obtained by dry spinning. The extent to which the original strick of flax as laid on the feeding roller for (say) the production of a 50 lea yarn is, by doublings and drawings, extended, when it reaches the spinning spindle, may be stated thus: 35 times on spreading frame, 15 times on first drawing frame, 15 times on second drawing frame, 14 times on third drawing frame, 15 times on roving frame and 10 times on spinning frame, in all 16,537,500 times its original length, with 8 × 12 × 16 = 1536 doublings on the three drawing frames. That is to say, 1 yd. of hackled line fed into the spreading frame is spread out, mixed with other fibres, to a length of about 9400 m. of yarn, when the above drafts obtain. The drafts are much shorter for the majority of yarns.

The next operation is reeling from the bobbins into hanks. By act of parliament, throughout the United Kingdom the standard measure of flax yard is the “lea,” called also in Scotland the “cut” of 300 yds. The flax is wound or reeled on a reel having a circumference of 90 in. (2½ yds.) making “a thread,” and one hundred and twenty such threads form a lea. The grist or count of all fine yarns is estimated by the number of leas in 1 ℔; thus “50 lea” indicates that there are 50 leas or cuts of 300 yds. each in 1 ℔ of the yard so denominated. With the heavier yarns in Scotland the quality is indicated by their weight per “spyndle” of 48 cuts or leas; thus “3 ℔ tow yarn” is such as weighs 3 ℔ per spyndle, equivalent to “16 lea.”

The hanks of yarn from wet spinning are either dried in a loft with artificial heat or exposed over ropes in the open air. When dry they are twisted back and forward to take the wiry feeling out of the yarn, and made up in bundles for the market as “grey yarn.” English spinners make up their yarns into “bundles” of 20 hanks, each hank containing 10 leas; Irish spinners make hanks of 12 leas, 162⁄3 of which form a bundle; Scottish manufacturers adhere to the spyndle containing 4 hanks of 12 cuts or leas.

Commercial qualities of yarn range from about 8 ℔ tow yarns (6 lea) up to 160 lea line yarn. Very much finer yarn up even to 400 lea may be spun from the system of machines found in many mills; but these higher counts are only used for fine thread for sewing and for the making of lace. The highest counts of cut line flax are spun in Irish mills for the manufacture of fine cambrics and lawns which are characteristic features of the Ulster trade. Exceedingly high counts have sometimes been spun by hand, and for the preparation of the finest lace threads it is said the Belgian hand spinners must work in damp cellars, where the spinner is guided by the sense of touch alone, the filament being too fine to be seen by the eye. Such lace yarn is said to have been sold for as much as £240 per ℔. In the Great Exhibition of 1851, yarn of 760 lea, equal to about 130 m. per ℔, was shown which had been spun by an Irish woman eighty-four years of age. In the same exhibition there was shown by a Cambray manufacturing firm hand-spun yarn equal to 1200 warp and 1600 weft or to more than 204 and 272 m. per ℔ respectively.

Linen fabrics are numerous in variety and widely different in their qualities, appearance and applications, ranging from heavy sail-cloth and rough sacking to the most delicate cambrics, lawns and scrims. The heavier manufactures include as Fabrics. a principal item sail-cloth, with canvas, tarpaulin, sacking and carpeting. The principal seats of the manufacture of these linens are Dundee, Arbroath, Forfar, Kirkcaldy, Aberdeen and Barnsley. The medium weight linens, which are used for a great variety of purposes, such as tent-making, towelling, covers, outer garments for men, linings, upholstery work, &c., include duck, huckaback, crash, tick, dowlas, osnaburg, low sheetings and low brown linens. Plain bleached linens form a class by themselves, and include principally the materials for shirts and collars and for bed sheets. Under the head of twilled linens are included drills, diapers and dimity for household use; and damasks for table linen, of which two kinds are distinguished—single or five-leaf damask, and double or eight-leaf damask, the pattern being formed by the intersection of warp and weft yarns at intervals of five and eight threads of yarn respectively. The fine linens are cambrics, lawns and handkerchiefs; and lastly, printed and dyed linen fabrics may be assigned to a special though not important class. In a general way it may be said regarding the British industry that the heavy linen trade centres in Dundee; medium goods are made in most linen manufacturing districts; damasks are chiefly produced in Belfast, Dunfermline and Perth; and the fine linen manufactures have their seat in Belfast and the north of Ireland. Leeds and Barnsley are the centres of the linen trade in England.

Linen fabrics have several advantages over cotton, resulting principally from the microscopic structure and length of the flax fibre. The cloth is much smoother and more lustrous than cotton cloth; and, presenting a less “woolly” surface, it does not soil so readily, nor absorb and retain moisture so freely, as the more spongy cotton; and it is at once a cool, clean and healthful material for bed-sheeting and clothing. Bleached linen, starched and dressed, possesses that unequalled purity, gloss and smoothness which make it alone the material suitable for shirt-fronts, collars and wristbands; and the gossamer delicacy, yet strength, of the thread it may be spun into fits it for the fine lace-making to which it is devoted. Flax is a slightly heavier material than cotton, while its strength is about double.

As regards the actual number of spindles and power-looms engaged in linen manufacture, the following particulars are taken from the report of the Flax Supply Association for 1905:—

British Exports of Linen Yarn and Cloth.

Authorities.—History of the trade, &c.: Warden’s Linen Trade, Ancient and Modern. Spinning: Peter Sharp, Flax, Tow and Jute Spinning (Dundee); H. R. Carter, Spinning and Twisting of Long Vegetable Fibres (London). Weaving: Woodhouse and Milne, Jute and Linen Weaving, part i., Mechanism, part ii., Calculations and Cloth Structure (Manchester); and Woodhouse and Milne, Textile Design: Pure and Applied (London).