History sewed
In the last century in many countries, the fever of treasure hunted. Whoever was not looking for treasures: small adventurers and respectable fathers of families, boys and retired generals, vagabonds and members of governments. And found?
"With shaking hands, not breathing with excitement, we pulled out the bolts. A moment - and before us a treasure appeared. When the flames of the lanterns lit up the pit, a sheen of such force shot up from a heap of gold and precious stones that we were blinded. "
"Edmond shoveled his hands in a pile of diamonds, pearls, rubies, which, falling on each other with a sparkling waterfall, knocked like a hurricane striking glass."
Tailor. An ancient engraving.
This is not a description of the true events, but excerpts from the books of Edgar Poe "The Golden Beetle" and Alexandre Dumas "The Count of Monte Cristo".Literary heroes found treasure more incomparably than real seekers. But the passion for treasure hunting has not settled even in our days. Hundreds, thousands of people continue to dig in the ground, dive into the depths of the ocean, spend millions searching. And the result?
This happened not because of the imagination of the writer, but in reality. .. On the Florida coast under a thick layer of sand, treasure hunters found a wooden trunk with the inscription "San Fernando".A ship with this name sank 250 years ago on the way from Mexico to Spain with a solid cargo: 150 million silver pesos. Apparently, the trunk was thrown ashore on the shore, and then the sand fell asleep. The lucky ones fussed about the castle for a long time, finally it succumbed, a few trembling with impatience hands threw back the lid, and the gaze of treasure hunters appeared tens of thousands. .. big sailors needles for sailing the sails. Of course, the grieving seekers were disappointed. Is this a treasure? But a simple needle is really a treasure - a treasure of the human mind.
Shaped seam making machine. The end of XIX century.
If there was a "primitive" patent bureau and a primitive man brought in an application for a sewing implement, which said that "the needle is a pointed stem for sewing with a lug at the end", all subsequent inventors could not add anything for millennia,so the needle is perfect. Perhaps not a single instrument of labor has gone so unchanged through the history of mankind.
Fish bone, at the blunt end of which a hole is made - that's the whole "invention".This bone, only from metal, we use today.
Hand sewing machine. Mason. The end of XIX century.
After some time after the invention of the bone needle, they began to look for a replacement - very much it was fragile. Thorn spikes went to work, but they were mostly used by poor people, more well-groomed sewed clothes with silver and gold needles. Then the needles began to be made of bronze, iron. Steel needles in Europe appeared in the XIV century, when they learned the secret of solid Damascus steel. Ear in the beginning did not know how to do - just bend the tip. The appearance of a drawing board greatly facilitated the manufacture of needles, improved their appearance.
In Russia, a steel needle was brought in from Germany in the 17th century. And soon the Russian masters also mastered the art of making it. With the help of this simple device, magnificent clothes for fashionable women of all time and people, delicate embroideries-paintings, embroidered with pearls and beads, icons, everyday clothes, children's toys came out. .. Everything turned out well for them, only work was very slow.
The sewing machine has helped to increase the speed of stitching. Now the sewing speed of her - up to 10 thousand stitches per minute. And so that the threads and fabric do not catch fire, a special cooling system is created for the needles.
Today it is very difficult to call the inventor of a sewing machine of one person. The first design of the machine for sewing clothes back in 1496 was developed by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1755 in England, the inventor C. Weiztentl was granted a patent for a sewing machine that copied hand stitches. The needle in it had two points and a hole in the middle. In 1790, T. Sent built a machine that could sew leather, but both models were unsuccessful.
The sewing machine of the French tailor Timonier was more acceptable. Passionate inventor did not have a basic knowledge of mechanics, but for 4 years he worked continuously on his brainchild. He even rarely looked in the workshop, neglecting the tailor's occupation, which was the only source of his family's existence. Things fell into decay, he was ruined, he was known as a madman. But in 1829 his dream was realized - the car earned! Two years later, one company opened a workshop in Paris with 80 sewing machines for the manufacture of military clothing and invited Timonier to his office. But all the tailors of the city took up arms against the inventor, afraid of falling incomes. They defeated the studio, broke all the equipment. The years of wandering, humiliation and struggle for existence began. More than once you could see the inventor, walking on foot from town to town with a car behind him. To feed, he had to show his offspring to the public as some trained animal.
It should be noted that all the machines were single-stranded, that is, the seam obtained consisted of one thread being pulled through the fabric with a needle. Therefore, the seam easily blossomed, it was worth pulling the end of the thread or tearing it in one place.
The task of creating a non-opening seam was decided by the American E. Hou. After a long experiment in 1848, he managed to make a sewing machine that made 300 stitches per minute. Hou did not base the invention on reproducing the hand stitch, but the principle of looping with a needle with an eye at the point and securing this loop with a second thread placed in the shuttle. They say Hou saw in a dream that he was captured by savages armed with spears with holes in the tips. When he woke up, he realized that he had to make a hole for the thread at the end of the needle, and not in the middle.
During the 30-50s of the last century, almost 30 patents for sewing machines were issued in England and the United States. A special success fell to the share of the home hand machine Singer, a mechanic and an industrialist. Machines "Singer" were exported to many countries of the world, including Russia. Semi-handicraft workshops emerged in Podolsk near Moscow, where these machines were assembled from imported parts.
Every year sewing machines became more and more fast and specialized. These features are especially different electric sewing machines, their "father" is the Russian electrical engineer VN Chikolev. He invented such a machine at the end of the last century, but it was not produced in our country until the 1950s.
Today, sewing machines are not only sewing, but also embroidering, hinging loops, sewing on buttons. In most cases, the needle moves vertically down and up, but sometimes in a horizontal or inclined plane. Some needles have straight blades, others - curved ones. Sewing machines for shoes, as a rule, do not have an eyelet on the tip of the end, but a hook. To sew the skin using needles with a special sharpening: oval, rhombic, square, trihedral, spatula. Some machines have more than a dozen needles.
It's not easy to make even an ordinary hand needle. Everything begins with a special needle wire: it is fed into a cutting machine, where the blanks are made into two needles. Then sharpen - sharpen the ends of future needles. The machine guns pierce the ears and break the workpieces into two parts. That seems to have turned out to be a needle. But to the present she is still far away. It is "raw", soft. Such a long time is not enough. It is waiting for heat treatment to give it strength. After that, polishing, polishing and glazing with sawdust from hardwood trees. This is a long and laborious work. It is no accident that only in seven states of the world mass production of needles is established. Therefore, they are highly appreciated. A few kilograms of high-quality needle for sewing machines are more expensive than the best car!
Take note
Put on the bottom of the box, where you hold the needles, a magnet, and they will never crumble.
So that the needles do not rust, they can be stored stuck in soap.