Making Upholstery Cloth: The Ford Industries Part 2
Description
The original catalog description provided by the Ford Motor Company reads as follows: Captions: “From raw materials to finished product’ is a phrase applied to many activities of the Ford Motor Company.” “As with iron, steel, glass, and other materials, so also is it true of the upholstery cloth used in closed Ford cars.” “The story of Ford wool begins in pastoral scenes like this.” “With the Spring comes the shearing and the wool buyer’s opportunity to carefully select his purchase.” “Selecting wool from the sheep’s back.” “Examining the sheared wool.” “Satisfied with the quality the buyer places an order.” “Farmer Jones loads his wool for shipment to Detroit.” “The wool arrives and is sorted.” “The first manufacturing operation -- the machine which opens and dusts the fleece.” “The bath where the wool is thoroughly washed with a solution of scouring liquor.” “It comes from the bath minus grease and dirt and weighing half what it did before.” “Hot air blowers dry the wool and send it along in the continuous manufacturing process.” “It next comes to the burr picker which removes the chaff, shives, dust, burrs, etc.” “This machine picks out a lot of dirt -- just look.” “A truck takes the finished rolls to the cutting department and a small sample goes to the laboratory for test.” “All these are finishing operations. A storage rack aids in steady production.” “How each fleece is prepared for shipment.” “The wool arrives and is weighed.” “Unwashed and washed wool.” “Sorting the fleeces into different grades.” “If a single thread breaks a finger drops down and stops the loom.” “The broken yarn must be threaded and tied before the loom continues.” “Quality and workmanship...the important thing in making upholstery cloth.” “A close-up of the cylinders.” “Shearing burrs off the back of the cloth.” “Back at Farmer Jones’s everything is going along fine and...” “Making a cushion as all these cushions are made...with care.” “There are many grades of thread used in cushion making. A six pound test is necessary for this grade of thread to pass.” “It must test 50 lbs. or better.” “The violet ray machine proves whether or not the cloth is fast color. A record is kept of the length of time it takes each piece of cloth to fade.” “The cloth must be laid in even folds so that it can be put through the finishing operations.” “Part of the wool is left in the natural color...the rest is dyed brown, slate, and black. One of the dying machines.” “A truck takes the finished rolls to the cutting department and a small sample goes to the laboratory for test.” “All these are finishing operations. A storage rack aids in steady production.” “The test in the laboratory. Determining the tensile strength. This machine registers the number of pounds pressure the cloth will stand in tearing.” “The strips of cloth from the waste are used here.” “The story of Ford wool begins in pastoral scenes like this...” Caption superimposed over pastoral scene, sheep and herder. “He is welcomed home with a shout.” “Explaining to his wife how the wool from his sheep is woven into upholstery cloth.” “The End.” “Part of the wool is left in the natural color…the rest is dyed brown, slate, and black...one of the dying machines.” “Blowing the wool in the storage bin.” “In this machine the different colored wools are blended, weighed, mixed, and oiled, preparatory to manufacturing into cloth.” “The carding machine. Proper blending, good carding is necessary to high quality.” “Bristling cylinders rotate at different speeds, rapidly transferring the wool from one to the other.” “A close-up of the cylinder.” “Conveyors carry the material to the next carding machine laying it cross-wise to give an even blend.” “Belts now take the material to the next machine in strips.” “Here by a rubbing motion the fibers of the wool are loosely knitted together into roving...the basis of yarn.” “After three complete carding operations the ‘roving’ is removed on spools.” “The spools are now placed on the mules. These machines make yarn by a drawing and twisting process.” “Threading the bobbins.” “Only a certain amount of the roving is fed on each outward movement of the mule which draws or stretches it after the feed has stopped.” “The bobbins come out rotating 3300 times per minute.” “This ultra-rapid view illustrates the action taking place.” “Wow we see the difference between ‘roving’ and yarn.” “Winding the yarn from the bobbins to the ‘jack spool.’” “Six of these spools are wound onto a still larger spool called ‘section beam.’” “Eight ‘section beams’ in their turn make up a Ford warp.” [1926]
Read more