The Making of Carpets
How Are Modern Rugs and Carpets Made?
The best way to learn of this is for us to take a brief visit to one of the largest carpet factories, where we will assume we have already arrived.
There is a sharp whistle, then an outlet of steam, the clang of a bell and a locomotive rolls around the curve of the spur-track into the factory yard. Attached to it are several freight cars that only the day before received their cargoes at the New York docks fresh from steamships coming from foreign lands. Inside the yard, the engine comes to a stop alongside a warehouse. Sturdy men unlock the doors of the cars and begin pulling out bales of the imported wool.
This is the first step in the evolution of a rug. Between the arrival of the rough wool at the warehouse and the placing in the stock room of the finished rug, splendidly woven after an artistic design shown in attractive colors, many interesting processes are followed. It is sufficient to state that few people looking at rugs of the Saxony, or Axminster or Tapestry type realize the high degree of mechanical science and artistic perception that have been brought to bear in the manufacture of these rugs.
After the arrival of the wool there are many steps to be taken until the skeins of yarn receive their coloring treatment in the dye-house and, at the bidding of the great machine, assemble themselves in the beautiful designs that the artists have created. Though there are many details of work in the development of a rug, they have been so well mastered that the employes in charge of every stage of the rug’s evolution give to their work a nicety of attention in little time that careful training and scientific understanding alone can supply.
The travel-stained covers of the bales are removed. The heavy bulk is broken and the tightly-compressed bales loosened. Then the wool is fed into the washing-machine, and after that goes into the picking-machine. The process of cleansing the wool is an elaborate one, for it is so full of dirt and grease that several waters and several operations are necessary to its final appearance in a white and fleecy condition. After the last washing the wool is lifted to a drying-room, where the heat from steam-coils is forced through it by means of blowers.
The wool now passes to the sorting-room, where the blends are carefully made before it goes to the machine which tears the wool fibers apart, and gets them in shape for the carding and combing processes. Next the wool is blown into a spinning mill. The wool is now ready to be converted into yarn. It passes through a picking-machine, which blends the different grades of the raw material, selecting the strands as to fiber and color. Then it is refined and purified.
Through tubes the wool is forced to the carding-room by means of air pressure. In passing through the cards it is carefully weighed to secure evenness in the yarn. Leaving the carding machine, the wool is taken to the floor above, where the big spools of yarn reach the combing machine for the next process. This machine separates the long from the short fibers. The strands of wool are still thick and must go through another process before they are ready to be made into yarn. They are finally united and given sufficient strength to stand the weaving process. As the visitor sees the strands of yarn first appear on the machine they resemble rolls of smoke.
HOW THE YARN FOR CARPETS IS DYED
The yarn next appears on rows of spindles in the mule-room, six hundred feet long, where the yarn is twisted and brought to its final stage. The yarn now is ready for the dye-house. Here the atmosphere is very dense. Clouds of steam rise from the many vats of boiling dyes. The yarn receives the coloring for which it is intended, or is bleached in an adjoining department, and then is transferred on poles to the drying-room, after passing through a steaming process which sets the color. Next it passes on an electric conveyor to the weave-shop.
Considerable skill is required in the weaving process. The assembling of the yarns and matching of colors require expert attention. The skeins of yarn are wound on spools, which are put in sets back of the looms, each color or set representing one “frame” of color in the rug. By the famous Jacquard motion of cards each color wanted in the surface of the rug is pulled up in its proper place, the other frame color laying in the back of the rug. The mechanical process is a remarkable sight. As the pattern forms itself from the mechanical devices, the onlooker is struck with the wonder of it.
The weave is now completed; the rug comes out. But it is rough and has to be finished. It is passed through a machine that removes the roughness of the face as a lawn-mower cuts away the top-grass. The ends are finished, and the carpet is complete.
SOME DESIGNS STAMPED ON YARN BEFORE WEAVING
The pattern of tapestry carpet is obtained by printing the colors to appear in the design on the yarn which forms the face before the weaving is started, by means of large drums. After all rugs leave the weave-shop a force of skilled women examine them carefully to make sure that there are no defects. Every yard of the annual output of carpet and rugs is inspected five times before it leaves the factory.