Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/525

 HAT 511 = The annual production of hatters' fur in the United States is about 500,000 Ibs. ; but the principal supplies come from towns on the North sea, from Frankfort, Brussels, and a few other -places. The furs are obtained there in large quantities, and have the excellent quality of thickness due to a cold climate. After the fur has been separated from the pelt it is first mixed, the different qualities together, and the finest carded cotton is added in the proportion of i to oz. of cotton to 4 or 5 oz. of fur, the quantity required for a felt hat. The ixing is effected in a picking machine, into Inch it is drawn as fed, and, immediately seized a toothed picker, which revolves with great ocity, creating a powerful current of air, it tossed about in the capacious box forming top of the machine, and carried as it falls an endless apron, which delivers it to a nd pair of feed rollers and another picker, which the operation is repeated. The fur barged from this contains the long hairs d bits of pelt and other impurities, from which it is to be separated in the next process, which called blowing. The machines for this are tained in a box sometimes 20 ft. long and iut 7 high, in which case there are eight suc- cessive sets of the same apparatus of pickers and screens. As the fur is fed in at one end, it is taken by the feed rollers against the points of a cylindrical picker, which revolves several thousand times in a minute. This strikes out & large portion of the heavy hairs and coarse particles, and tosses the light fur into the upper portion of the box, where it is blown forward to the next set, in which it is subjected to a repetition of the same process. The coarser portions fall upon an inclined screen, which is kept in agitation. The loose hairs and refuse stuff fall through this, and the portion that is shaken off the screen is delivered back on the floor under the point of starting. As it col- lects it is taken up and sent through again. Much of the dust separates through the perfo- rated sheet copper with which the machine is covered. The next process is to form the hat body ; an operation that has been accomplished by various methods, as by bowing and working the fur together by hand, and thus felting it ; also by what is called the pneumatic process, by which a mat is obtained that is afterward worked upon a block into the required shape. Thomas Blanchard of Boston several years ago, by exhausting the air under a fine wire gauze, caused the fur to be drawn together upon this and partially felted, in the form of a thin nar- row ribbon. This was then wound upon a double cone of the size and form for two hat bodies. The next improvement was that of Henry A. Wells of New York in 1846, who invented the machine now in use. He made a cone of sheet copper punched full of round holes, and, setting it upright, caused it to re- volve slowly upon its axis. Under this an ex- hausting fan is put in action, causing by its rotation of about 4,000 times in a minute a 393 VOL. vm. 33 current of air to draw through the holes from the outside. A trunk or box with a vertical opening directed against the cone discharges the fur, which is fed into it at the other end. Here it is received from the feeding apron in quantity just sufficient for one hat body. It is drawn in between two horizontal feeding roll- ers covered with felt, and immediately seized by a cylinder revolving about 3,600 times in a minute, and furnished with several longitudinal lines of stiff brushes. This generates a current of air, which scatters the fur, and blows it to- ward the mouth of the trunk, where it is rap- idly drawn upon the perforated cone and evenly spread over the top and down the sides of the same, in quantity enough for one body in 16 revolutions. H. A. Burr improved the discharg- ing trunk, so that it could be adjusted to de- posit more or less fur on any desired portions of the cone. As the fur collects, the workman picks off any coarse particles that gather on the surface, and when the supply for one hat body is deposited he wraps a wet cloth over the cone, and slips a metallic cover over the whole, which he removes into a tank of hot water. A new cone is immediately set in its place to re- ceive another coating of fur. The hot water makes the mat more tenacious. It is soon slipped off the cone, taken to a table, gently worked by hand-rolling in a piece of blanket, squeezed and pressed, and then folded into con- venient shape. It is now ready to be pressed with others, to be made up into the bundles in which the bodies are sent to the hatters. The material has not yet assumed the form or size of a hat. It is a large open-mouthed bag, smaller and rounded at the closed end. In making the bodies by the old hand process, a man used to be occupied a whole day upon four or five. By the machine just described, and known as the "former," tended by two men and a boy, and employing another in rolling the bodies, 400 are completed each day, all of which are alike in shape, weight, and thickness. The cost of the labor on each is estimated at from 6 to 10 cts. The inferior bodies made by the old method cost for labor about 56 cents ; their manufacture is now gen- erally abandoned. After the mats come into the hands of the hatters, they are reduced in size by sizing. This, which is entirely a hand process, consists in rubbing a pile of several bodies, first dipped into hot water and rolled in a piece of blanket, upon a sloping table, techni- cally called a battery, which is arranged around a central caldron affording accommodation for from 8 to 12 workmen. By rubbing the bodies together for a short time they are reduced to about one third their original size, and the felt is rendered more compact. A skilful work- man knows just how far to carry this process, which leaves the shells, as they are now called, uniform in thickness and size. They are then dyed of any desired color, after which they are blocked, which consists in stretching the cone- shaped shell over a wooden block of the shape