Nylon Stockings By Giant Machine

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 42, 17 January 1949, Page 5

Nylon Stockings By Giant Machine

The man who in 1589 invented the knitting-frame for the production of stockings would have been amazed at the latest machine manufactured for this purpose.. It has just left a Nottingham factory. To replace hand knitters the Rev William Lee, of Calverton, Notts, evolved a complicated piece of machinery to make a coarse woollen stocking. Later he made a much finer-gauge on which to knit silk hose. Now, over 350 years later, a giant machine for making nylon stockings has over 100,000 moving parts and produces just over 18 pairs of stockings every hour. The machine, first of this kind to come from the Nottingham factory, is so sensitive that it is affected by a five per cent fall in temperature; it has required five months runningin before it was ready for work, but by using a new method this time may be reduced to two months for further machines. When the machine, which is 55 feet long, was moved by road to Loughborough recently it had to go in two sections, each weighing eight tons. Two articulated Scammell trucks were used, and to secure as clear a road as possible, the journey was begun at five o’clock one Sunday morning. .At Loughborough the road in front of the factory was closed for five hours while the machine was unloaded. Many more such machines will come from the Nottingham factory, for 400 meg. are now working to produce two each week, and thus help to speed up the supply.