Sewing machinery : being a practical manual of the sewing machine, comprising its history and details of its construction, with full technical directions for the adjusting of sewing machines

Front matter

WEALE'S RUDIMENTARY SCIENTIFIC

AND EDUCATIONAL SERIES. if "

Franklin Institute Library

Preface

space at his command, not attempted to include descriptions of any but types of the machine now in use ; his aim has been to review essential and leading facts, and to produce a handbook that might prove of actual service in the business of daily life

He has to acknowledge, with thanks, the able assistance, during the preparation of the work, of the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company, the Howe Machine Company, and the Willcox and Gibbs Company.

London, August, 1880.

Section II. DIRECTIONS FOR ADJUSTING THE VARIOUS TYPES OF SEWING MACHINERY

CHAPTER VII.

Wheeler and Wilson Machines " A 94

CHAPTER VIII.

Singer Machines 129

CHAPTER IX.

Grover and Baker Machines 152

CHAPTER X.

"Little Wanzer " Machines 161

CHAPTER XI.

Weir Machines 163

LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS.

FIG . PAGE

The First Sewing Machine . . . Frontisjyieee

Portrait of Elias Howe 8

Portrait of Allen B. Wilson . . . . .12

1. The Lock Stitch 21

2. Hoave Machine — Under Parts 28

3. Howe Machine in Working Position .... 29

4. "Threading the Tension" 31

5. Tension Wheel apart 32

G. Upper Extremity of Needle and Presser Bars . . 32

7. Howe Machine : the Loop made 33

8. Howe Shuttle — Plain Heel 34

9. Winding the Bobbin. 35

10. High Bed Kotating-Hook Machine 38

11. Cloth Plate Removed . 39

12. The Hinged Bobbin Holder 40

13. Under Side of Cloth Plate .40

14. Old Style of Feed Bar 41

15. Ditto Removed from Machine 41

16. Draw Feed Motion 42

17. Draav Feed Bar 43

Plate 1 45

18. Rotating Hook 46

19. Straight-Needle Machine 48

21. Ditto Cloth Plate Removed . . . .51

22. Under Parts 52

23. The Cams 53

24. Variable Motion 53

25. Section of Ditto , . 54

26. New Hook 55

27. Bobbin and Case 55

Y1H

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

sfIa ' TAGE

Plate II * . .50

28. Bobbin Holder 57

29. Under Tension 53

30. New Feed Bar 58

31. Rolling PresserT 59

33. Ditto Plate Removed 61

34. No. 8 Machine 62

Plate III (34.

35. Willcox and Gibbs' Machine 75

36. Stitch Indicator 82

37. Oilways op Feed Mechanism 83

38. Oilways op Upper Parts 84

39. Placing the Needle 85

40. Setting the Needle 85

41. Screwing up the Needle 86

42. Thread Ways 87

SEWING MACHINERY.

SECTION I.

HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SEWING MACHINE.

Chapter I. Invention Of The Sewing Machine : An Historical Sketch

The invention of what is known as the lock stitch, and of the mechanism by which it is produced, is due to America, and dates from about 1844.

Elias Howe, the inventor of the shuttle sewing machine, was born in 1819, in Spencer, Massachusetts. When the idea of a sewing machine entered his mind he was twenty years old, and a " machinist " in the shop of an ingenious mechanic in Boston. Young Howe overheard a capitalist remark to his employer that an independent fortune would be insured to the inventor of a sewing machine, and forthwith the idea seized him that a stitching machine was practicable. But the only immediate effect upon him of the conversation in the shop of Mr. Davis was to induce a habit of reflecting upon the art of sewing, watching the operation as performed by hand, and wondering

SEWING MACHINERY.

whether it was within the compass of the mechanical arts to do it by machinery. His uppermost thought was, what a waste of power to employ the ponderous human arm, and all the intricate machinery of the process, in performing an operation so simple, and for which a robin's strength would suffice ! Why not draw twelve threads through at once, or fifty ? And sometimes, while visiting a shop where army and navy clothing was made, he would look at the heaps of unsewed garments, all cut alike, all requiring the same stitch, the same number of stitches, and the same kind of seam, and say to himself, " What a pity this cannot be done by machinery ! It is the very work for a machine to do."

It was not until Howe was four years older, and married, with a family to support upon nine dollars a week, that the pressure of poverty, and the extreme fatigue he suffered by reason of his daily work being too heavy for him, caused his mind to again concentrate itself upon the idea of a sewing machine, which he had heard, four years before, would be an " independent fortune " to the inventor. He wasted many months on a false scent. When he began to experiment, his only thought was to invent a machine which would do what he saw his wife doing when she sewed. He took it for granted that all sewing must be done in this way, and his first device was a needle pointed at both ends, with the eye in the middle, that should be caused to work up and down through the cloth, and carry the thread with it at each thrust.

Howe brooded over this impracticable conception for some time, aud cut many a basket of chips in his endeavour to make something that would work such a needle so as to form the common hand stitch, but he

INVENTION OF THE LOCK STITCH.

could not accomplish it. One day, in 1844, the thought flashed upon him : Is it necessary that a machine should imitate the performance of the hand ; may there not be another stitch ? This was the crisis of the invention. The idea of using two threads, and forming a stitch by the aid of a shuttle and reciprocating needle, with the eye near the point, soon occurred to him, and he felt that he had invented a sewing machine. It was in the month of October, 1844, that he was able to convince himself, by a rough model of wood and wire, that such a machine as he projected would sew.

The practicability of the invention could not be exhibited or tested except by a machine of steel and iron, with the exactness and finish of a clock, and Howe, who was reduced about this time to the greatest hardships, could not provide even the raw material for such a machine. Fortunately for the poor inventor, however, there was living at Cambridge (U.S.A.) a young friend and schoolmate of former days, a wood and coal merchant, named George Fisher, who had recently inherited some property, and was not disinclined to speculate with some of it. The two friends had been in the habit of conversing together upon the project of a sewing machine. When, therefore, the inventor had reached his final conception in 1844, he succeeded in convincing George Fisher of its feasibility, which led to a kind of partnership between them for bringing the invention out. The terms of this partnership were these : — George Fisher was to receive into his house Elias Howe and his family, board them while Elias was making the machine, give up his garret for a workshop, and provide money for material and tools to the extent of five hundred dollars ; in return for which he was to become the proprietor of one-half the

b 2

SEWING MACHINERY.

patent, if the machine proved to be worth patenting. Early in December, 1844, Elias Howe moved into the house of George Fisher, set up his shop in the garret, gathered materials about him, and went to work. It was a very small, low garret, but it sufficed for one zealous, brooding workman, who did not wish for gossiping visitors.

All the winter of 1844-45 Howe worked at his machine. His conception of what he intended to produce was so clear and complete that he was little delayed by failures, but worked on with almost as much certainty and steadiness as though he had a model before him. In April he sewed a seam with his machine. In the middle of May, 1845, he had completed his work. In July he sewed by his machine all the seams of two suits of woollen clothes, one suit for Mr. Fisher, and the other for himself, and this sewing outlasted the cloth. This, Howe's original machine, may still be seen at 28, Union Square, New York, and is represented in the frontispiece to this work.

Mr. Howe, like many other inventors, found that when he had completed his machine his difficulties had but begun. After he had brought the machine to the point of making stitches, he went to Boston to get a tailor to come to Cambridge, and arrange some cloth for sewing, and give his opinion as to the quality of the work done by the machine. The comrades of the man to whom he first applied dissuaded him from going, alleging that a sewing machine, if it worked well, must necessarily reduce the whole fraternity of tailors to beggary ; and this further proved to be the unchangeable conviction of the tailors for the next ten years. It is quite probable that the machines first made would have been destroyed by violence, but for another fixed howe's first machine.

opinion of the tailors, which was that no machin^oil^gX^^?| be made that would really answer the purpose.

This machine was then publicly exhibited, and at the Quincy Hall Clothing Manufactory, Mr. Howe challenged five of the swiftest sewers in the establishment to a race with his machine. Ten seams of equal length were prepared, five of which were given to the girls, and the other five were taken in hand by Mr. Howe. The result was that the machine had run up the five seams when the hand sewers were little more than half through with their five. Upon readingtestimony like this the wonder is that manufacturers did not at once set Howe at work making sewing machines, but not one was ordered. Not a tailor encouraged him by word or deed. Some objected that the machine did not make the whole garment ; others dreaded to encounter the fierce opposition of the journeymen ; while not a few really thought it would beggar all hand sewers, and refrained from using it on principle. It was the old story : "We are doing well as we are, and fear to make such a change."

But the inventor was not disheartened by the result of the introduction of the machine. The next step was to get the invention patented ; and Howe again shut himself up in George Fisher's garret for three or four months, and made another machine for deposit in the Patent Office. Late in the summer of 1846, the model and documents being ready for the Patent Office, the two partners went to Washington, when the sewing machine was exhibited at a fair, with no result except to amuse the crowd. On September 10th, 1846, the patent was issued, and soon after the young men returned to Cambridge.

Georo-e Fisher was now totally discouraged ; he had c

SEWING MACHINERY.

risked in all about two thousand dollars, and he saw not the remotest probability of the invention becoming profitable. Elias Howe moved back to his father's house, and George Fisher considered his advance in the light of a dead loss.

It now occurred to Howe that since America had rejected the invention, he should offer it to England. In October, 1846, his brother, Amasa B. Howe, with the assistance of their father, took passage in the steerage of a sailing packet, and conveyed one of the machines to London. An Englishman was found who had faith enough in the American sewing machine to invest money in it. In Cheapside, Amasa Howe came upon the shop of a manufacturer of corsets, umbrellas, valises, carpet bags, and shoes, who examined and approved of the machine. But the bargain made on this occasion, through the agency of Amasa B. Howe, was signally bad for the inventor. He sold for two hundred and fifty pounds sterling the machine he had brought with him, and with it the right for the purchaser to use as many others in his own business as he desired. There was also a verbal understanding that this manufacturer was to patent the invention in England, and, if the machine came into use there, he was to pay the inventor three pounds on every machine sold ; he further proposed to engage the inventor to adapt the machine to the making of corsets, offering him a salary of three pounds a week, and to defray expenses of material.

Amasa B. Howe returned to Cambridge with this proposal, and America being still insensible to the charms of the sewing machine, Elias Howe accepted the offer, and the brothers set sail for London on February 5th, 1847, where they were soon after joined

DIFFICULTIES OF THE INVENTOR.

by the inventor's wife and family. After eight months of labour Howe succeeded in adapting his machine to the work required, and when this was done his employer required him to do the various repairs, an insult which the American naturally resented, and he was in consequence discharged.

The most painful part of the story of poor Howe now commences. From a chance acquaintance, Charles Inglis, a coachmaker, who proved to be a true friend, he leased a small room for a workshop, in which, after borrowing a few tools, he began to construct his fourth sewing machine. Long before it was completed he saw that he must reduce his expenses or leave the machine unfinished. From three rooms he removed his family to one, and that a small one, in the cheapest part of Surrey. Nor did that economy suffice ; and he resolved to send his family home while he could, and trust to the machine on hand for the means to follow them. "Before his wife left London," testifies Mr. Inglis, " he had frequently borrowed money from me in sums of five pounds, and requested me to fm4 him credit for provisions. On the evening of Mrs. Howe's departure, the night was very wet and stormy, and her health being delicate, she was unable to walk to the ship. Howe had no money to pay the cab hire, and he borrowed a few shillings from me to pay it, which he repaid by pledging some of his clothing. Some linen came home from his washerwoman for his wife and children on the day of her departure, but she could not take it with her on account of not having money to pay the woman."

After the departure of his family the solitary inventor was still more severely pinched, but at the expiration of three or four months the machine was finished.

DIFFICULTIES OF THE INVENTOR.

It was worth fifty pounds. The only customer he could find was a working man, who offered five pounds for it if he were granted sufficient time to pay it in. The inventor was obliged to accept this offer. The purchaser gave his note for the five pounds, which Charles Inglis succeeded in selling to another mechanic for four pounds. To pay his debts and his expenses home, Mr. Howe pawned his precious first machine and his letters patent, and again took passage to America, along with his English friend, Charles Inglis.

In April, 1849, Elias Howe, with half-a-crown in his pocket, landed in New York, after an absence of two years. He was obliged to seek employment in the machine shops, which he luckily found without delay. He had no sooner settled to work, however, than the news came to him from Cambridge that his wife was dying of consumption, but he had not the money wherewith to visit her. A few dollars afterwards came from his father, and Howe had time to reach his wife and to see her during her last moments.

The natural gaiety of poor Howe's disposition was now quite quenched by the severity of his many trials, and he appeared exceedingly downcast and worn. Soon after this, as a crowning misfortune, came the intelligence that the ship in which he had embarked all his household goods had been wrecked off Cape Cod, and was a total loss.

From this point, which may be considered the lowest depth of Howe's misfortunes, he received help from his friends, and he soon discovered that his first machine on the shuttle principle was being imitated and sold about America, and that while he resided in London several ingenious mechanics had turned their attention to the making of sewing machines.

SEWING MACHINERY.

Howe now prevailed upon a capitalist to join him in defending his rights, and many lawsuits followed, the outcome of which was that Howe was acknowledged to be the first inventor of the shuttle sewing machine. Shortly afterwards he was established in New York as a manufacturer of sewing machines, and in a few years, having bought up the remainder of his patent, was the worthy recipient of a princely revenue derived from their sale. In the year 1867 he was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour by France, but he did not long enjoy the honours and rewards which his invention had brought him, for on the 3rd of October, 1867, Elias Howe died at Brooklyn, New York, to the deep regret of his innumerable friends, who not only honoured him as the inventor of the sewing machine, but also for the many excellent personal characteristics he possessed.

Allen B. Wilson, the inventor of the rotating hook lock-stitch machine, was born in the year 1827, and became, at twenty years of age, a journeyman cabinetmaker in Adrian, Michigan. In 1847 Wilson conceived the notion of a sewing machine, and had some definite ideas as to the means by which the apparatus should work. The inventor's own words graphically describe his position at this time, and the difficulties under which he laboured.

" I was in needy circumstances, earning but little more than enough to board and clothe me. I was taken sick early in the spring of 1847, with fever and ague, which greatly reduced me ; I have never fully recovered from it." The inventor then goes on to describe his difficulties in attempting to put his ideas into the form of a sewing machine, and after enduring great privation we find him at Willitt, wilson's first experiments.

Courtland Co., New York. " I remained there until May, 1848, working while able, and giving much thought to my sewing machine, which I was then very desirous of building. I then went to work in a cottonmill at Homer, and got money enough to reach New York City on the 15th of J\me, 1848, destitute and a stranger. . . . Not being able to do hard work, and being destitute of the means of living, I hired out as a cook on a coasting sloop running on the Long Island Sound. ... I left the sloop at Providence, and worked there a few weeks. I then went to Boston, where I worked a few weeks more, by which I was enabled to save about twelve dollars. I went to Pittsfield the last of August, 1 848, and hired out the same day to Barnes and Goodrich, cabinet-makers. As the fall was approaching, it occurred to me that as the evenings became longer, if I could only get the evenings to myself, I would have time to make the sewing machine, the plan of which I had so long in my mind.

" No favourable opportunity occurred until I went to work for Mr. Barnes individually, which was about Feb. 1st, 1849, when it was specially agreed that I should have the evenings to myself, and a right to work in the shop in the evenings for myself. I had previously, as early as November, 1848, made full drawings of all the parts of my projected sewing machine, and shown them to two or three of my most intimate friends. . . . They laughed at me, and I concluded not to say anything more about it until it was done. I began the construction of a working machine almost the first evening I worked for Mr. Barnes, and completed it about the 1st of April, 1849.

" Not being a machinist by trade, and having no means wherewith to procure the assistance of machinists, it was necessarily of rude and imperfect construction,

Allen B. Wilson, Inventor of Rotating-Hook Sewing Machines.

and did not illustrate in the best manner the principle and mode of operation involved in my invention ; but, wilson's rotating hook.

notwithstanding its imperfections, it had made garments of various kinds, and had been exhibited to manypersons.

" Up to this time I had never seen or heard of a sewing machine other than my own. In May, 1849, I moved to North Adams, Mass., and built a second and better machine of the same kind. I received no encouragement or assistance, however, but, on the contrary, discouragement and ridicule ; and as I had no money, it became a serious question how I should obtain letters patent for my invention. At last I "induced Joseph N. Chapin, of North Adams, to purchase one-half interest in the invention for two hundred dollars. This was the best I could do. I spent all that, and about two hundred dollars more, in procuring the patent, which was dated November 12th, 1850."

Mr. Wilson then records how he and Mr. Chapin fell into the hands of New York swindlers, who, pretending to have a right to some parts of the invention, induced the partners to make over to them half the patent, to avoid ruinous legal proceedings. This was done, but the hollowness of the claims of the persons mentioned became in a month or two so obvious, that Messrs. Wilson and Chapin were enabled to free their property, which was, after much trouble, put into the hands of a small party of commercial men, who ultimately did Mr. Wilson justice, and founded the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine Company.

The first machine brought out by Wilson operated by means of a two-pointed shuttle, and a feeding device of the most ingenious description. The Howe machine at first operated by means of a " baster plate," in which were inserted a series of pins, upon the points of which the cloth was fastened. This plate was moved forward

SEWING MACHINERY.

at each stitch to form the feed, as shown in the frontispiece. (See description, p. 27.) Mr. Wilson arranged his machine so that the material could be pressed upon the cloth plate by a spring foot, and added to the stitching mechanism a feeding apparatus which has four motions, and carries the cloth in any required direction, so that the seam may be straight or curved at will. The basis of all modern feeding mechanism, upon which so much depends, is thus due to Allen B. Wilson.

But by far the most wonderful invention in the construction of sewing machines is Wilson's Rotating Hook, which he applied to his machine shortly after its introduction. This device, which is explained at p. 46, performs the functions of a shuttle by seizing the upper thread, and throwing its loop over a circular bobbin containing the under thread. The motion is continually in one direction, and the reciprocating movements of the shuttle entirely avoided. A further development of the same invention, which is exhibited and explained at p. 55, has been made by Mr. House, in the employment of the Wheeler and Wilson Company.

James E. A. Gibbs, the inventor of the Single-thread Rotating-Hook Machine, has kindly furnished the author with the following account of this ingenious invention : — "My attention was first called to the subject of sewing machines in the year 1855, by seeing a plain woodcut of a Grover and Baker machine in a newspaper advertisement, and being of a mechanical turn of mind, it at once excited my curiosity to know how it could possibly sew. As I was then living in a very out-of-the-way place (Pocahontas Co., Virginia, U.S.), far from railroads and public conveyances of all kinds, modern improvements seldom reached our locality, and not being likely to have my curiosity satisfied other-

GIBBS's INVENTION.

wise, I set to work to see what I could learn from the woodcut, which, was not accompanied by any description.

" I first discovered that the needle was attached to a needle arm, and consequently could not pass entirely through the material, but must retreat through the same hole by which it entered. From this I saw that it could not make a stitch similar to hand work, but must have some other mode of fastening the thread underneath, and among other possible modes of doing this, the chain stitch occurred to me as a likely means of accomplishing the end.

" I next endeavoured to discover how this stitch was or could be made, and from the woodcut I saw that the driving shaft, which had the driving wheel on the outer end, passed along under the cloth plate of the machine. I knew that the mechanism which operated on the stitch must be connected with, and actuated by, this driving shaft. After studying the position and relations of the needle and shaft with each other, I conceived the idea of a revolving hook on the end of the shaft, which might take hold of the thread, and manipulate it into a chain stitch. My ideas were, of course, very rude and indefinite, but it will be seen that I then had the correct conception of the invention afterwards embodied in my machine.

" Having no further interest in view than to satisfy my curiosity how sewing by machinery could be done, and caring little whether I had the correct idea or not, I gave the matter no further attention or thought until during the month of January, 1856. At this time, while on a visit to my father in Rockbridge Co., Virginia, I happened to go into a tailor's shop where there was a Singer's sewing machine working on the lock-stitch shuttle principle. I was very favourably impressed

SEWING MACHINERY'.

with its utility, which was far beyond my previous impressions of the development of the art, but at the same time I considered the machine entirely too heavy, complicated, and cumbersome, and also that the price was exorbitant. These considerations led me to apply myself to inventing and producing a more simple, cheap, and useful machine. As soon as I reached home in Pocahontas Co. I began to apply my mind to this subject. I first made a small imperfect hook on the end of a piece of wire, by which I demonstrated that the chain stitch could be made by a hook revolving on the end of a driving shaft, and first thought of making a machine in this way, but after producing some samples of a chain stitch and testing them, I became dissatisfied with the stitch, and also still labouring under the delusion that probably the Grover and Baker machine was constructed in that way, I concluded to turn my attention to the lock stitch, and made a rude model out of wood of a shuttle lock-stitch machine. My family was at this time dependent upon my daily labour for support, so that I had very little time to spare for my experiments, working only at nights and in bad weather. I also laboured under great disadvantages for want of tools and materials, having to make my own needles, and constructing my shuttles of wood, as I was then a carpenter only. By the 1st of April, 1856, I had completed my model, and succeeded in interesting my employers in my invention so far as to induce them to furnish the capital wherewith to take out letters patent and develop the machine. During the month of August of the same year I came to Washington to take out my letters patent, and while there I examined the models in the office, and also some of the machines then in the market.

GIBBS'S INVENTION.

" I ultimately fell back upon my old idea of a single-thread machine with greater confidence in its success, but while making the first one, the idea occurred to me to make the hook stationary, and to vibrate the needle instead. This needle, however, I found to be already in use by others, and I finally produced a sewing machine with a rotating hook or looper, and a needle having a vertical motion only." With the assistance of Mr. Ruckman, this machine was at first manufactured by the firm of Emory, Haughton & Co., of Boston.

Mr. Gibbs is the inventor of several improvements in sewing machines, but the final outcome has been the Willcox and Gibbs machine, described at p. 74.

Several other kinds of stitches form the subjects of independent inventions, but the limits of this treatise preclude the giving of fuller historical particulars. Those mentioned may be accepted as the only stitches used for general purposes— the double-chain stitch, mentioned at p. 152, being now almost obsolete. We have, therefore, two distinct stitches, one of which is formed by means of interlooping a single thread beneath the fabric, and the other by interweaving with a second thread, also beneath the cloth.

Each of these stitches possesses certain advantages for given kinds of work. The single-thread, or, as it is generally termed, the chain stitch, is elastic, and seldom gives way when the fabric is wetted; when made with a good and suitable class of thread, it lies close to the under side of the fabric, and is not liable to injury by friction. When the seam is worked with the thread at a considerable tension, it does not tend to unravel, even if broken at several points. In addition to these advantages a single-thread seam is preeminently suited to those classes of goods which ladies