Part 10

THE ADVANTAGE OF THE THIN SPINDLE

Since we introduced the thin Spindle, we have been keeping a number of them in reserve. When a student has his spindle bent, it is not corrected there and then but he is at once given one of the spare good ones, so there is no delay. Afterwards all the spindles that have gone wrong are collected and corrected together.

The sadi, i.e. the wrapping on the spindle which serves as a pulley, is often cut by itself and has sometimes to be cut off in order to correct the spindle. A new sadi has to be wrapped and for this a bottle of thick gum is kept ready at hand. It must be made of fine strong yarn, and be wrapped very tight. If it is loose, the string which revolves the spindle (mala) sinks in it and cuts it asunder, and at once the spindle stops. If the sadi is made of coarse yarn, it becomes rough, and so the mala does not run smoothly, and the spindle throbs and causes breakage of the yarn while it is being spun.

Pairs of chamarakhan (leather-bearing) also are kept in reserve. When these become too soft by an excess of oiling or by rough handling, they must be changed. Now-a-days we make them from raw hides and not from leather or bamboo, and so they keep longer.

Formerly a round piece of wood or cardboard used to serve as a rest for winding the cone. But now we have substituted a piece of horn which is more durable. Wax is kept in stock for treating the mala. Besides these things we have a small oil-can, a pen-knife, a hammer, a chisel, and a small anvil.

The students bring the hank twisted hard in the shape of a stick. The hank weighs two tolas, which is the standard weight of the sliver provided. A bigger hank causes trouble while we open it, and the yarn is spoilt. The yarn spun by each student is kept separate with his name upon a wooden tag attached to it. Every student is asked to stick to one particular count all along till he has spun out enough for a length of warp; and then the yarn is sent to the weaving department. Every one is anxious to see when his yarn is sent out for weaving. Three such lengths of warp are being woven at present. About seven are ready waiting to be woven. An eleven year old girl will soon get a piece 20 yards long and 42 inches wide out of yarn spun by herself in the course of three months. This will provide her with two suits of clothing of two small sadis, 2 blouses and 2 petticoats. Her father had put in a pound of yarn spun by himself, to finish up the piece, and in return for this, she is going to spare a dhoti for him too. She is as much pleased to see the cloth woven from her own yarn as most girls would be to see brocade. Two other girls have combined their stock of yarn and are daily asking for it to be woven. Those students who have passed out from the spinning class are engaged in other departments, and have not much time to spare for spinning; so they work on holidays and prepare woof for their own warps, which are waiting to be woven. So in the second month, the spinning department is in full swing.

Y. I.--18th Aug. 1921.

HAND-LOOMS

The working of the spinning class having been fully described in the first two articles, the process next to be taken up is carding; but having received a number of queries as to the working of hand-looms, I propose to deal with this before going into intermediate processes.

Questions are asked as to which will be the most useful loom for weaving hand-spun yarn. Some want our opinion about the automatic looms; others insist upon the necessity of inventing a new swift-working machine, while still others ask for monetary help to prepare such after their own designs.

My humble but firm opinion is that the old pit-loom is the best, especially for weaving hand-spun yarn. No doubt it is the slowest working instrument but is the surest of all, and just as our old spinning-wheel in spite of its being the slowest instrument is absolutely capable of spinning out all the cotton that India produces to-day, so the old pit-loom is perfectly capable of weaving out all the yarn that India can produce by means of the spinning wheels and the mills.

This is not the time to enter into the figures in support of my statement. I shall only try to show the usefulness of the pit-loom. The fly-shuttle loom has its place in the sphere of home industry as well as of the factory, but the automatic looms have no room in this industry. Its drawbacks can only be realized by a study of the facts and figures regarding concerns which employ such looms. People who newly take up this industry should beware of flashy advertisements. They should not be misled by professed calculations of the working of such looms.

The fly-shuttle looms have varying adjustments. In the Muzzaffarpur spinning and weaving exhibition held in May last, a party from this school was present with its wheel and loom. Of all the fly-shuttle looms exhibited, the one from this school was selected as the simplest and lightest of all. It is all made of wood, with the exception of nails and screws required for joining. The pickers are also made entirely of wood. The shuttle and perns are home-made. Other looms had iron bars in their boxes, were operated with foreign shuttles, and their perns were unwieldy. Our loom is modelled upon a type of looms working in thousands in the Madras Presidency. The whole loom with a wooden frame to fit on a pit, with the exception of the shields and reed costs Rs. 45. These latter things are not supplied, as there is no fixed standard of the yarn to be used on it.

I wish some public spirited person or firm will come forward in Madras or elsewhere in that presidency and undertake to supply the fly-shuttle loom as described above promptly and at reasonable rates. Any one desirous of taking up this work may correspond with the head of the Khadi Department, Gujarat Provincial Congress Committee Ahmedabad.

Thus far as regards the fly-shuttle looms. I suggest to new manufacturers that they cannot do better than start with the old fashioned pit-looms. It is our experience that on account of less breakage of yarn, especially hand-spun yarn, the output of a pit-loom almost equals and in some cases even exceeds that of the fly-shuttle loom. In weaving broader width, however, the fly-shuttle is certainly more convenient. And when the hand-spun yarn is of good test, it enjoys a decided advantage over the old loom in point of swiftness. But we have to remember that we have got to deal with hand-spun yarn which is not likely to have a good test for some time to come. It is therefore that the old loom is the safest and surest weaving instrument to go on with for the present.

Y. I.--25th Aug. 1921.

WHAT KIND OF LOOM?

Questions are asked as to the production of cloths in an old-fashioned loom from handspun yarn. The experience in our school is, that a well-practised worker weaves on a pit-loom one yard cloth of 30 inches width and of fairly thick texture in one hour. Cloth of greater or smaller width varies in proportion. Our fly-shuttle pit-loom has not exceeded this figure in handspun yarn so far. When formerly we used mill-made yarn, it yielded about half as much cloth again as the old pit-loom. However in weaving dhotiyans and sadis from handspun as well as mill-made yarn the flyshuttle is very handy.

Then there is a question as to the necessity of beaming the yarn. We believe, that where there is no question of room, beaming should be dispensed with. Hand-loom weaving factories situated in thickly populated towns where rates of house-rent are very high, have reason to resort to beaming; but where space allows stretching of the yarn as practised by the professional weavers, it is a time-saving method and is artistic as well. There is an argument in favour of beaming that it allows of the handling of warp as long as 200 or even 300 yards. But if such length of handspun yarn can be prepared, it is equally easy, if not easier, to stretch it in the old style.

SIZING HANDSPUN YARN

It is said, that the difficulty of sizing handspun yarn is a serious handicap from which the movement suffers. As a matter of fact, the method of sizing it should be no different from that of sizing mill-made yarn. It is slipshod spinning which is at the bottom of this difficulty. The best way out of it is to organise and improve the production of handspun yarn. It is superstition to say that the yarn spun on the charkha cannot be strong and even. Where proper care is taken, it does improve and even surpass mill-made yarn in some respects. Punjab and Marwad, where spinning has been carried on from past times, have also to improve their yarn. Not that the spinners there do not know their work, but they as well as the merchants who purchase their yarn are careless about the quality of the yarn turned out. Unless this work is taken up by men imbued with the true Swadeshi spirit, the condition is not likely to improve. The spinners should be visited at their work from time to time, and proper instructions as to the required twist and test to be given to the yarn should be imparted to them. The payment of a reasonably higher wage than the present is another way of improving the yarn. The wages we have arranged for our guidance are given below in the form of a table. Where living is cheaper than in Gujarat, they can be adjusted accordingly. The yarn having improved, the difficulty of sizing will disappear.

When a country weaver shows inability to weave hand-spun yarn, it means that he cannot weave it in the same reed space as he uses for the mill-made yarn. This is quite evident. The hand-spun yarn not being even, it requires wider reed space. The table given below also shows the number of ends of different counts to be drawn in an inch of a reed. Then if the cloth to be woven is meant for shirting or coating and not for dhotiyan or sadi, and if the yarn has a good test, two to four ends can be added to the number denoted in the table.

Column headings:

C: Count. T: Approximate twist per inch. R: Rounds on 4 feet hank frame.

+---+------+--------+----+-----+------------+------------+--------------+ | | | | | | Number of | Number of | Rates of | | | | Wage | | | ends in an | double | weaving per | | C | Test.| per | T | R | inch of | ends in an | square yard. | | | | pound. | | | reed. | inch. | Rs. A. P. | +---+------+--------+----+-----+------------+------------+--------------+ | 6 | Warp | 0 4 0 | 10 | 96 | 24 to 28 | 18 to 22 | 0 4 0 | | | | | | | | | | | 6 | Weft | 0 3 0 | 8 | " | ... | ... | ... | | | | | | | | | | | 9 | Warp | 0 6 0 | 12 | 144 | 26 to 32 | 20 to 24 | 0 4 6 | | | | | | | | | | | 9 | Weft | 0 4 6 | 10 | " | ... | ... | ... | | | | | | | | | | |12 | Warp | 0 10 0 | 14 | 192 | 30 to 34 | 22 to 26 | 0 5 0 | | | | | | | | | | |12 | Weft | 0 8 0 | 12 | " | ... | ... | ... | | | | | | | | | | |16 | Warp | 0 12 0 | 16 | 256 | 34 to 38 | 24 to 28 | 0 5 6 | | | | | | | | | | |16 | Weft | 0 10 0 | 13 | " | ... | ... | ... | | | | | | | | | | |20 | Warp | 1 0 0 | 18 | 320 | 40 to 44 | 28 to 32 | 0 6 0 | | | | | | | | | | |20 | Weft | 0 13 0 | 15 | " | ... | ... | ... | +---+------+--------+----+-----+------------+------------+--------------+

If the yarn is very weak and uneven, it should be woven with two ends in warp as well as in weft. This will give a strong texture to the cloth, making the process of weaving easy at the same time. The proportion in this case of ends to be drawn in an inch of the reed space is also given in the above table. If this course is adopted, heaps of handspun yarn that have accumulated all over the country can be woven out without much difficulty.

As a fact, the method of sizing traditionally followed by the weavers cannot be improved upon. Their selection of the sizing material is appropriate to the climate, season and circumstances. For the most part they use the staple corn. Jawari and maize being the cheapest are used in many parts. In the rainy season, however, they use wheat flour as a stronger sizing material to counteract the over-softening influence of the moisture present in the air. In the Madras Presidency, a cereal called ragi with a yellowish flour is used for coarse counts, while rice is used for finer counts. Rice and wheat are the best ingredients for sizing. The proportion used is from 10 per cent required for fine yarn to 20 per cent for coarse yarn.

Different preparations of various sizing materials are as follow:--