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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls
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 Posted -
28/05/2004
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LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 78/AI/08 (Side two)
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON MAY 1ST 1979 AT 13 AVON DRIVE BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS STANLEY GRAHAM WHO WAS THE ENGINEER AT BANCROFT MILL AND WHO HAS BEEN THE INTERVIEWER ON MOST OF THE TAPES..
Picture number 47. Negative number 787230.
This is a picture in the far end of the cellar of the boiler feed pumps. These are an essential part of any boiler installation. A boiler is, in effect, a large kettle boiling water and we all know what happens to the kettle at home if we let it keep on boiling, it eventually boils dry. The same thing happens in a large Lancashire boiler but the difference is that we can't take the lid off and pour water in, we have to force it in under pressure. I don't propose to talk a lot about this picture at the moment as regards describing its function in connection with the boiler, merely to point out the salient features of the picture itself because I shall talk more about feed pumps and feed water when we actually describe the boiler. One interesting thing about this picture is that if you notice, the cellar at Bancroft was whitewashed, it was whitewashed when the engine-was brand new. Jack Roberts, the last surviving member of the brothers who owned the firm of Roberts at Nelson says that when Bancroft was put in it was reckoned to be rather a superior installation because of the fact that it was stated on the contract that the boiler house, the engine house and the cellar had to be whitewashed.
These pumps which you can see here aren't the original pumps that were fitted. Originally it used to be a steam injector and a steam pump pumping water into the boiler through the connies. Over the years it was realized that this perhaps wasn't the best way of doing it and various installations were put in. When I came I altered it all again due to the fact that the pump on the left, which is a Pearn pump, made by Frank Pearn at Manchester, three throw electric pump, was in very bad condition and was not up to the job of keeping the boiler full of water. I put the pump in which stands at the far end, which is a Brown and Pickles pump. This was second hand when 1 bought it, obviously these pumps haven't been made for 30 or 40 years. This is a beautiful pump, far bigger than it needs to be but running very slowly. That pump would pump boiling water and that’s saying something for a reciprocating pump. It would take water that was almost on the verge of boiling and force it into that boiler. Which is what you need for boiler feed. The motor driving it, on the bed in front, the electric motor, is of more than passing interest. It's one of Horace Green’s from Cononley and it's a 10HP motor. Now this will look very large to people in the future who are looking at it, for a 10hp motor it looked very large in these days. Brook’s Motors of Huddersfield turned out a 10hp motor that was only about a third of the size of this one and a quarter of the weight but that motor of Horace Greens would deliver 10hp for ever. They were the Rolls Royce of electric motors and were made near Skipton at Cononley. They were just a fantastic motor, you never had any trouble with a Horace Green’s motor, full stop. They were built well within their job and they'd just carry on for ever. An amazing piece of machinery. If ever there's such a thing as an electric motor preservation society Horace Green’s motors ought to be the
first ones that are put in. Newton once told me that Brown and Pickles’ had a 30hp Green’s motor driving the shafting in the machine shop at Wellhouse. During the war they had so much work on that the motor was being overloaded and started to stink. They sent for Horace Green and he came down and had a look at it. He told them it was alright, they could run it safely until the paint started to blister on the casing.
All the pipe work that you can see in the cellar there was done by myself and Bob Parkinson. We did it all ourselves and if you look very carefully, the pipe that comes down the right hand-side of the Brown & Pickles pump has a slight bend in it before it gets to the big bend which leads to the flange. This pipe had to be cut and welded again to make it fit in place. We did all this and used old second hand pipe. I think all that we'd bought was one piece of 3" pipe, everything else we robbed out of the original installation in the mill to repipe this engine house because the pipework was in shocking condition. Anyway, I'll talk more about that when I get on to talking about the boiler itself.
What we are going to do now is move on to a description of the pictures on taping. The reason why the numbering starts at 1 again is because these pictures were actually set out in the first place as separate folios when they were sent down to the Science Museum in London. With hindsight it would have been a lot better it we’d laid this folio out differently but you must bear with me and remember that we were working very much in the dark when I started doing this.
FOLIO OF TAPING PICTURES.
Picture number 1. Negative number
This is a picture of Joe Nutter, a member of the original Nutter family who built the mill. He was taping at the age of 18. I'm going to talk very fully about Joe because he won't be talking about himself. He is still alive but he was very badly affected by the closing of the mill. When I say badly affected, I don't mean that his health suffered or his mental health suffered but we found as the mill was running down it rather caught us unawares. I didn't really expect the mill to close down so quickly and so thought that we'd get all the descriptions by the individual workers done before we finished. In point of fact that didn't happen, the mill closed down first. I’m afraid that it so affected Joe that he just didn't want to talk about his job or the mill or the Nutters. It was a disappointment for me but I quite understand it. I will admit that I was rather annoyed at the time but I can quite understand it, he was just absolutely sick and didn't want to talk about it. So what I've done, I shall describe these pictures and I have found another gentleman who was a taper all his life, very similar sort of a career to Joe and I shall record him describing Joe's pictures. This won't be exactly the same as Joe describing them, but is the best that I can do under the circumstances. So I shall go through these pictures quite quickly and give my description of what was happening.
[Anyone who has looked at all the transcripts will realise that I recorded my taper in July 1979. Horace Thornton of Earby proved to be a wonderful informant and I acquired a lot of information that Joe Nutter couldn’t have given me. See the 79/AD series of transcripts.]
SG description of the taping pictures.
I should say first what taping is. Taping, warp-sizing, or slashing, is the process of taking in back beams with the requisite number of threads in the set and making up weavers' beams fit to go into the loom after they have their healds and reeds put on them. This involves a certain number of things; one is making sure that there is the correct number of ends and count of yarn on each beam. The other essential part of taping is making sure that that beam has been sized correctly. Now, the reason for sizing a weavers’ warp, which is impregnating the individual threads with a mixture of starch and tallow and various other ingredients and then drying it, is to give the yarn elasticity which makes it better able to withstand the shocks of weaving in the loom and probably more important, to stop it penning up. Now penning up is the process whereby dawn gradually comes off the outside of the fibre and builds up in the reeds and healds to the extent where it blocks the gap that the thread's running through and breaks the end causing breakages. This is a very serious fault, and makes for very bad weaving. This is one of sizing's main jobs, to stop that happening.
In the old days sizing used to have an additional function. In the days when cloth was sold by weight it used to be an advantage to put as much weight into the cloth as possible, in the form of size. This was done by very heavy additions of china clay to the size mixture and this was known as the period of heavy sizing. It was very bad, not only from the point of view that it was dishonest but from the fact that it greatly increased the dust in the shed by reason of the china clay coming off the yarn. This made conditions as regards health in sheds, especially damp sheds, very bad for the weavers. This was the main cause of things like weaver’s cough, Bissinosis and similar industrial diseases. The heavy additions of size increased the amount of dust in the air.
So that's briefly what sizing is and that's what we are going to describe.
Picture number 2. Negative number 7718523.
This is a picture of the front of the mill and shows Jim Pollard the shed manager taking in a set of beams from one of Jackson’s wagons outside. These beams came from the spinners who made them up, and I'm just looking to see if I can see the name on these. I can’t see the name on them actually, they look like beams from Manor Mill but I can't see the name on them. These beams came to us in sets, more about that later, I’ll describe the set when we get to it. On this picture Jim’s lifting them up and taking them into the top floor by way of the teagle hoist. Actually it was a Baldwin hoist, it was made by Baldwins of Burnley, but they always got called the teagle or the cathead. The hoist could lift half a ton, it was tested to half a ton.
An interesting thing to notice is the heavy cast iron surround round the loading bay, round the roller shutters to stop damage and of course they had cast iron at the top acting as the lintel and beautiful dressed stone construction of the mill, random dressed. This mill was beautifully built and no reason why it shouldn't have stood up for a lot longer.
Picture number 3. Negative number 7718528.
This is a picture on the top floor showing Jim bringing the beams that you've seen going up, bringing them into the top floor of the warehouse. The preparation floor.
Picture number 4. Negative number 7718016.
This is a picture of the bay where the teagle is with the door shut at the end. The teagle mechanism can be seen up in the rafters, it was driven by an electric motor. Originally driven it was driven by the engine shafting and you could only use it when the engine was running. If you got a delivery when the engine was stopped they used to roll the beams into the cart-race at the bottom and then when the engine started, the next time it started, roll them out into the yard and lift them up then. So it was really a slight disadvantage but no great problem. One interesting thing about this place is that when we are looking at the pictures of the tape room which is to the left on this picture, notice that there are no cast iron pillars, the tape room is built with no cast iron pillars. The thing that's holding the roof up is a series of Warren trusses and these are carried on the cast iron pillar to the right which in common with the pillar in the warehouse below is a heavier pillar than normal because it's carrying all the weight of the tape room roof. The Warren trusses go right the way across the top of the tape room to the left and support all the weight of the roof. There is a clear space underneath for the tapes.
On the floor can be seen the set of beams which has just come in which evidently consists of four beams. Now, a quick word about the method of getting the right number of threads on each warp. The method was, if the weavers warps needed say 3000 threads on each, the set of back beams which was ordered to make up those weavers warps would in total have 3,000 ends on it. In other words it might be six beams of 20,000 yards each, in other words 20,000 yards of thread on each beam of 500 ends. So that when those six beams were put through the machine together, it came out at the other end as 3,000 ends and they were put on weavers beams, probably l,000 yards on each weaver’s beam. So a 20,000 yards set would make 20 weavers beams. Andy obviously, if the number was different, it would split up differently. These four beams would probably be for something quite light. It could be anything up to 700 or 750 ends on these beams but more usually 3 to 500 ends. So this was probably for a fairly light sort. Looking at it, quite possibly something like 2,000 ends in a weaver’s beam, 500 ends on each back beam because those beams aren’t full right to the top which makes me think that that was very fine yarn that was on there. Or quite fine yarn for Bancroft. That'd mean that they'd probably be about 25,000 yard beams but fairly fine stuff. If it was fine count, we didn't do any really strong cloth or we did very little really strong cloth in fine yarns so it wouldn’t be a very heavy count in the warp. In other words it'd probably be no more than about 2,000 ends in the weaver’s beam which would make fairly light cloth.
Old healds on the floor there, on the right hand side. Healds and reeds that have come off warps in the shed waiting to be put back on a weaver’s beam or waiting to be scrapped. More about those later when we get on about preparation.
Picture number 5. Negative number 7718212A.
This is a close up picture of those four back beams which came in that day, and there they are, from Manor, at Oldham. Four back beams ready to go into the tape room and be put on the tape machine. Notice the cardboard on the floor under the beams. If beams were full to the top they could pick splinters up from the floor or have threads damaged by the rough boards. This cardboard was a cheap and cheerful way of guarding against this.
Picture number 6. Negative number 7718013.
This is an overall view of the storage area in the preparation department upstairs. We are standing with our back to the tape room, in very much the same position from where the two photographs were taken of the set of back beams. We are looking down towards the winders department which is through the door marked 'Fire Exit'. On the left is a wooden partition which divides the twisting room from the rest of the floor and outside here was used for storage of things like beams, healds, reeds, warps ready for going into the twisting room, and cotton waste. Anything that needed storing or keeping about. All very flammable stuff needless to say, and the fire insurance was very heavy. The building was completely protected by a sprinkler system. This is the same construction as the rest of the mill if you notice, north light roof on top of the preparation department, cast iron pillars. This is of course the second floor and those pillars are duplicated below the floor, down to the concrete floor of the warehouse. All this space is empty now and is just one tremendously big floor. All the partitions have been taken out, the machinery and everything else as part of the demolition of the mill.
Picture number 7. Negative number 7718236A.
This is a picture of the corner of the tape room just behind the door as you go into it from where we were stood taking the pictures of the beams. It is a picture mainly of the arrangement of the belt drive to the tapes. You'll see that we have a shaft coming along the back wall of the room with a couple of large pulleys on it. That shaft originally went straight down that wall and drove the winders as well, but those have long since been converted to electricity so it didn't go any further than just beyond that partition. That shaft is driven off the engine by a four rope drive coming up out of the warehouse, we will see it in a later picture in the back corner of the tape room. Whenever the engine turns, that shaft turns. The belt driven by the pulley on the back wall runs across to the middle of the three pulleys on the left hand-side. The middle pulley of that group of three is the only one that is fast on the shaft running away down through the partition. The two outside pulleys are loose on the shaft, these are what are known as fast and loose pulleys.
In the position that it is in on this picture the engine shaft is driving the belt across on to the middle pulley of that shaft which is fast on to the shaft and which is driving that shaft which drives the pulley at the far end. That in turn drives another belt which goes across to the front side of the building and drives the pulley on another shaft which takes the drive into the tapes themselves. This seemingly complicated arrangement was necessary due to the fact that there used to be three tapes in this room and there was no room in the middle of the room to take the drive across because the roof space was already cluttered up with drives for fans and the tapes. So it was taken in at the far side. It’s also complicated by the fact that if you look on the floor there and also on
Picture number 8. Negative number 7718232A.
You will see the donkey engine which is another steam engine. The reason for this engine is that taping is a continual process, you don’t want to have to stop. You need to be able to start and run right the way through a set which leads to more even warps and the minimum of spoiled yarn. So the tapers kept working during the dinner hour. The engine stops at the dinner hour and the tapes have to keep going so just before dinner the donkey engine was started and as the main engine stopped the drive was taken over by the donkey. If you look on picture 7 you’ll see a chain hung down off a pulley. This operated a fork through which the belt ran and this moved the engine belt over to the far loose pulley and at the same time moved the donkey engine belt over on to the fast pulley. So when the main engine stopped the tapes carried on running powered by the donkey engine.
This donkey engine is a very interesting little engine because it is actually the last Brown & Pickles engine left running. Luckily it has not been scrapped but has been bought by a gentleman called Robert Aram and now lives down in Nottinghamshire. These engines were built by Brown and Pickles in considerable numbers and used for fitting mills up. It was very often cheaper for a large engine maker to buy a small engine like this off an independent maker like Brown and Pickles rather than make one themselves.
The donkey engine wasn't running there because the governor is at rest. This was another Pickering type governor or rather an English copy of the Pickering the same as the one on the barring engine. There are two drain cocks piped into the bottom of the cylinder and a simple banjo lubricator feeding the crank pin on the disc crank. The main bearing is fed by another drip feed lubricator.
Donkey engines were peculiarly liable to wear by virtue of the fact that they were looked after by the tapers and not by the engineer. And unfortunately the need for lubrication and correct tightening of glands and things like that weren't always fully
realised and donkey engines did wear faster than the other engine down in the main engine house. The feed of steam to that donkey engine was 80psi as was all the steam up top the tapes. It was reduced from boiler pressure by a pressure reduction valve in the separate steam main where it left the boiler. This arrangement of a separate feed to the tapes was a product of the fact that if the mill was really busy the tapes might have to do overtime. Having a separate main meant that if necessary the steam main to the engine could be cut off at the junction valve on the boiler but the tapes could still function. Another advantage was that by operating at a lower pressure through the reduction valve the tapers knew they were getting the same pressure all the time. They were not affected by variations in boiler pressure.
Picture number 9. Negative number 7718214A.
This is an overall picture of the creel at the back of the tape which carries the set of back beams which are being used to make the weaver’s warps. As you can see this is a fairly big set. There are eight back beams in that set. The individual threads of each one are lead down under rollers at the bottom and all of them come forward in a continuous web at the front where they actually go into the tape.
Other interesting things about that picture to notice are the north light construction with no pillars, the drive up from the warehouse at the far end for the engine shaft that we have been talking about on the back wall. Notice that the cast iron base of the creel seems to be blocked up to keep it level by blocks of varying size. This is due to a very peculiar thing we had at Bancroft that we called the Bancroft Mushroom. This was a growth caused by a spring which was leaving a mineral deposit under the concrete floor in the warehouse which in point of fact was lifting these two tapes
up slowly all the time. This had been going on for years and the lift had got to about eight inches. The floor of the tape room had a large bump in the middle of it and we just used to keep levelling the tape frame up when it caused a problem. It wasn't affecting the outside walls of the mill and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
Notice the lever on the frame, this was a remote lever for the stop and start mechanisms on the tape and was used when gaiting up or repairing a dropped end. The small hand wheels control the lateral position of the beams to help attain an even sheet.
[When the warehouse was demolished I found that there was a peat bog underneath the site of the Bancroft Mushroom. We sounded it with a cast iron girder hung on the crane and it was at least twenty feet deep. Knowledge of this by the builders may have been the reason why the boiler was installed the wrong way round.]
Picture number 10. negative number 7718021.
This is a picture of the 56 inch tape which is the one nearest to the door. We are looking down the side of it towards the place where the taper usually works at the far end, the place where the warps are delivered. In the left hand corner you'll see the web of warp going in. This tape was stopped at the time so the rollers at the front aren't forcing the web down into the sow box which was full of boiling size. The immersion roller is raised up on the rack. The immersion roller used to push the web down into the size, and of course the web was coated as it went through. You can see the drain cock at the side of the size boxy and the drive which comes up from the far end to drive the rollers in the sow box. There is also another remote lever to control starting and stopping.
It's important to realize that the bottom roller in the sow box and the drive to the weaver’s beam on the front of the tape are the only two things that are driven on this tape. The drums aren't driven. This makes these very old fashioned tapes, the only thing that drove the drums was the tension of the warp going round them. You can
faintly see the first drum and the second drum through the open doors in the side of the tape. There are two drums, a large one and a small one. The arrangement was that the warp went from the sow box, right up over the front side of the big drum, down round it, up the back and over the top of the small drum coming backwards and then down and round that one to the bottom and then right the way underneath the tape to the front where it went round another roller which can be faintly seen actually on this picture where it turns up into the bed of the tape itself at the front. More of that when we get to the front of the tape. The Bancroft tape room was always noted as being a very dirty place, not because the men that worked there weren't of quality but due to the fact that our tape room was understaffed and there just weren't the men available to do the job as it should have been done. These men were more concerned in turning out quality warps than keeping everything clean. Admittedly they could have perhaps done a bit more towards keeping things clean than they did but they took the view that they were there to do the essentials and who can blame them.
Picture number 11. Negative number 7718218A.
This is a close-up of the sow box, showing the web going in. It shows clearly the copper immersion roller. Everything that came into contact with the size was either cast iron or copper because anything else was eaten away at a tremendous rate. The size was very heavily corrosive. I should think it was acidic. The immersion roller is brought down by a rack which can be seen there. The roller behind it, which seems to be covered with felt on the outside is the squeeze roller which was a very heavy roller covered with taper’s flannel. This was dropped down by means of that cam which is supporting the spindle end. It dropped on to the top of a copper roller below, the warp sheet passed in between them and that roller squeezed the excess size out and allowed it to run back down into the sow box once the warp sheet had passed through.
The wooden trunking above is an arrangement to catch all the steam that rises off the drying warp sheet and draw it away. There were fans in the top of it and they blew out to the atmosphere. While the tape was running air was being drawn up that trunking all the time and blown out at the top to keep the atmosphere in the tape room as free of steam as possible.
Picture number 12. Negative number 7718220A.
This is a picture of the side of the 562 tape which is the one we are looking at. It clearly shows the maker's name and the date it was manufactured. Howard and Bullough, Accrington 1919. This tape was probably new when the mill was built. The other, narrower tape was dated 1903 and so was second-hand when it was installed. Note the massive construction of the cast iron frame. This is actually the suspension point for the large drying cylinder. The pipe that’s coming out there is actually the drain from the cylinder. Obviously if you are putting steam in there is going to be condensation in the cylinder which has to be removed. The sharper ones amongst you might be wondering how the condensate was removed from the centre of the cylinder. A good question, it fooled me for a long time. I have never seen the inside of the cylinder but people who have tell me that inside there were copper vanes on the periphery of the cylinder which caught the condensate and carried it high enough to discharge by gravity down gutters on the side plate to this central point where it ran away via the drain pipe.
Picture number 13. Negative number 7718222A.
This is an overall view of the tape room and the two tape machines. Clearly to be seen is the driving shaft over the top. Notice that the pulley at this end is covered with dust, that's because that was the pulley which drove the third tape which used to be installed in here, there used to be three machines. One tape machine is usually reckoned to be enough to keep 400 looms going, and so when it was a 1200 loom shop there'd be three tape machines in. Notice again the north light construction, the lack of cast iron pillars, the fact that everything is belt driven and the very complicated arrangement on the headstock of the tape where the yarn is actually split, sorted out and delivered to the weavers beam which can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, so as to make a good beam ready for going down into the warp preparation department and thence to the weaver.
Picture number 14. Negative number 7718221A.
This is a picture of a weavers warp on the headstock of the tape ready for coming off. Interesting things to notice there are, starting at the top, the comb which delivers the individual threads to the warp evenly, the arrangement of rollers that the sheet goes round. Notice the big one covered with cloth, that's the drag roller that actually provides the power which draws the yarn through the tape, notice the guard to stop you getting your tie into the mechanism. And also notice that the beam itself, the web of warp going on to the beam seems to be narrower than the beam itself. This is what is known as a built-up beam and was done to get more yarn on to the weavers beam so that it could last longer in the loom. When it got so that the beam was actually full to the top of the flanges the comb at the top was progressively narrowed in and more and more yarn put on to build up. You'll see that it looks slightly curved at the ends. If you look at the bottom side you’ll see it plainly. It was possible to put an extra piece on that beam in safety. Obviously if they had kept it at the original width there would have been a danger of the threads coming over the flange so they used to build it up during the last piece as it was coming off. The rollers at the bottom, the shiny iron rollers at the bottom, opened out to the full width of the beam and used to run just inside the flange. They were press rollers and their function was to press the yarn as it went on, iron it down, roll it to make sure you got it all on perfectly firm and even.
Picture number 15. Negative 771823lA.
This is an overall view of the comb on the headstock that guided the web of yarn on to the weaver’s beam. The bars which split the individual threads can be seen mounted across the frame, more of those later. Notice that the comb is on a sort of lazy tong arrangement. The idea of this is that the threaded rod below, when turned, narrowed that comb or widened it which enabled the taper to control the width of the web going on the beam. The weighted lever with the padded end that you can see at the front of the comb was the cut marker. The padded end looks slightly black on the bottom side, that is soaked in blue dye and what happens is that there is an automatic measuring device on the tape which, when it comes to the end of a piece, which is
100 yards, flicks that down. It drops down and hits the yarn and puts a mark on the yarn which shows the weaver that she is at the end of a cut and that should then be cut out and sent into the warehouse. Actually the two tape machines were different. This one had a single cut marker, and the older, smaller machine to the right of this had a double cut marker so that whether a warp had two cut marks or one cut mark told you which tape it had come off.
Picture number 16. Negative 7718229A.
This is part of the same series and shows very clearly the arrangement of the rods passing through the yarn to split it as it comes away from the drying cylinders. More of that later when we see the splitting bands being put in.
Picture number 17. Negative number 7718227A.
This is an overall view of the front of the tape giving a clear idea of the complicated nature of the front of a tape machine. There is a full warp on this machine. The picture was evidently taken when it stopped at week-end ready for that warp being
taken off on the following working day. A taper always stopped with the full warp on, they never stopped half way through a warp because that automatically meant trouble for the weaver. It is important that whatever the quality of a warp it should be the same right the way through so that once the loom has been set up for it it will run right the way through. Notice the drive, one big leather belt down on to the main driving pulley of the tape guarded somewhat inefficiently by that piece of wire mesh. The lack of guarding at Bancroft is a thing that always used to amaze me, and yet we never had any accidents.
Picture number 18. Negative 7718228A.
This is an overall view of the creel from the other side. I don’t think there is anything on here that we haven’t already discussed. It just gives you a very clear idea of the construction of the beams themselves. Notice that the arrows pointing to the rotation of the beam are pointing the opposite way to what they're rotating here. This doesn't mean that there had been a terrible mistake made. That arrow is actually an instruction to the beamer, that the beam must rotate that way when the beam is being wound. It doesn’t apply to the taper obviously, when the taper's taking it off it is running in the opposite direction. Notice the cast iron frame, cast iron construction and the fact that everything is covered with dawn. This flies about all over the place, it’s not only limited to carding rooms and places like that.
Picture number 19. Negative number 7718019.
This is again an overall view of the tape but from the back corner and looking forward. Notice that above the trunking leading up to the fan is a bar with some rods on, with bobbins of thread on. That’s another small creel and was used if either there’d been a mistake and there wasn't just enough ends in a warp, it was possible to lead some more in from there. Or if they wanted to strengthen the outside edge for a selvedge they'd put a couple of extra threads in down each side. You’d very often see that being done when they were running.
Picture number 20. Negative number 7718834.
This is a picture of one of the size becks. The size becks are a wooden construction, cast iron frame and lined with stainless steel. In the old days they wouldn’t be lined, they were completely water tight but over the years they deteriorated so they have been lined with stainless steel. The arrangement on top is the belt drive down to the gearing which drives the paddles inside the size boxes. These paddles keep the size in motion when it is being boiled or being used by pumping it over to the sow box on the tape. If the paddles weren’t operating it would settle like porridge. Each size beck has its own water supply and steam supply and the method of using them is that size is drawn off one box, there are two boxes here, left and right, size is drawn off one box to feed to the tape and at the same time a fresh supply is being boiled up in the other box so that there is a continuous supply. When one side's finished the pump can he swapped over to draw off the other beck.
The method of making size is to, in our case at Bancroft we used to use farina
which is potato starch, pure tallow and sometimes a bit of soft soap. Occasionally a bit of size used to be added. We used very simple mixes of size, and the idea is to boil it together until the starch granules burst and go into a jelly and this means boiling it for about an hour or two hours. The size becks were great users of steam. They were very expensive to operate. There are actually two sets of size boxes, one for each tape. Each tape has its own separate size box as sometimes the tapes are running on different size mixes. The pipe for feeding the tapes can be seen going off to the right, the nearest one to us is going to the far tape and the far pipe you can see off the far set of size boxes is going to the nearest tape, the one nearest to us here.
Size is quite good stuff when it's first boiled up but believe me, when it has stood over the summer holidays or something like that it stinks terribly. Some of the most terrible smells you can imagine could he found in the tape room after the long break when they first boiled it up. I couldn't really see how it ever did anybody any good working up there but they seem to survive to a fair age. Notice again how dirty everything is. Things were dirty up there, there is no doubt about it, but in a lot of ways things were sadly neglected. It was none of my business to clean up in the tape room, but I often used to wish that they'd just taken a little bit more trouble over cleaning up. Any maintenance that had to be done up there was a very dirty dusty affair and was certainly not to be looked forward to. Notice that the trunking which carries the steam away from the box on the far size box is wooden, and the one on the near size box is aluminium. The reason is that the wooden one is original, it's the easiest way of making a trunking. The near one is a modern edition. Evidently the old wooden trunking has broken down and so a modern aluminium one has been substituted for its far cleaner and far more efficient and less likely to get furred up on the inside or warp and split.
One interesting thing about this picture just before we leave it is that it gives an idea of the sort of antiquated worn out machinery which was used at Bancroft. And yet the results were superb, mainly due to the fact that the men who were using this machinery were experts and knew their job inside out. The thing about the tapes at Bancroft was that it's doubtful whether anybody else could have run them. It would certainly have been a long job training anybody else to run them. A weaving shed can’t work efficiently without good warps and the fact that Joe was getting near to retiring probably means that Bancroft couldn’t have lasted longer than him. In fact at the far end we only had one taper, Joe, and we were all very much aware that if he was off poorly the mill stopped. In point of fact it never happened, but that would have been the case.
SCG/19 September 2003
7,017 words.
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Stanley Graham (Engineer & Researcher) Tape 13
