A machine for making cards for carding cotton, c.1750.

This machine was believed to have been made by John Kay, of Bury, about 1750, for cutting, bending, and inserting the wire in the cards used in the preparation of cotton. However, this claim has for some time been regarded as controversial. For a full discussion, see Henry Trueman Wood, Robert Kay, John Kay, Nathan Fielding and Wm. Kay, THE INVENTIONS OF JOHN KAY (1704—1770), Journal of the Royal Society of Arts , DECEMBER 8, 1911, Vol. 60, No. 3081 (DECEMBER 8, 1911), pp. 73-86.

Previous to Kay's machine being developed, the tedious operations of making hand cards had always been done by hand, and Kay was the first to make a machine to perform the work. Card- making machines did not, however, come into general use until 50 years later, when Amos Whittmore introduced an improved form. In Kay's machine the card clothing, which consisted of cotton or linen cloth with a backing of leather, was fixed in two vertical stretching-frames, each capable of sliding vertically in an outer frame, which could move horizontally along the length of the bed. It is a duplex machine, two cards being simulta- neously prepared, one in each frame. The main shaft is horizontal, and various cams, by which the following operations are performed, are fixed along its length at different points. The wire is led along parallel to the shaft, and the operations performed by the mechanism are :- (a) Feeding on a given length of wire. (b) Gripping the length of wire which has been fed on. (c) Pricking holes in the card clothing. (d) Cutting off a length of wire. Bending it into a staple. Pushing the staple forward and bending its legs to give the proper set. (e) Pushing the staple into its place in the cloth. (f) Moving the stretching-frame into position for the next staple. The first movement is performed by a jointed frame between two bars of which the wire passes, the arrangement being driven intermittently by a peg on the shaft, and the wire nipped during the forward motion. The holes are pricked in the cloth by piercers fixed at the ends of two levers which swing about joints below; they have a quick motion forward and then fall back again. The cutting is done by a shear blade moving over a plane face through which the wire passes. When forming the staple, the cut length of wire is held between an arm, which swings vertically at right angles to the main axis, and a steel spring. The arm is moved upward and enters a recess in the fixed cover plate just wide enough to admit the arm and the wire, so that the latter receives two short bends and becomes a staple. After this, a part of the arm which slides upon it is pushed forward and carries the staple with it, but the legs being caught in two inclined grooves at the side are bent and so receive the necessary set. Finally, the steel spring, which is thickened at the end, slides further forward than the rest of the sliding piece, and pushes the staple into its place in the cloth. The horizontal feed is given, after each staple has been inserted, by a lever which engages with a rack fixed to the stretching-frames. The vertical feed is given when the end of each row of staples is reached, an arm on the shaft striking a tooth on a star wheel fixed to a pinion which engages with the teeth of a vertical rack at the back of the frame.