Waterframe

The water frame was the first spinning machine with independent of human power drive by a water wheel. The name is an English word created from water (water) and frame ( frame, frame ).

The water frame was invented by the English wigmaker Richard Arkwright in 1769 and immediately registered for a patent. In 1771 he built with her in Cromford the first industrial cotton mill in the world. In contrast to the technical precursor spinning jenny, the water frame processed, the raw material continuously, and therefore could be operated by a laborer, who had nothing else to do, as filled spindles to replace empty and to put the broken threads again. With the drive to an external power source, the water frame could reach any size, as were machines with several hundred spindles are not uncommon. Machines of this magnitude could be only driven by steam engines on transmissions.

Terms of the process, the water frame is a wing spin machine, now consistently called flyer. This method is still used today for roving slivers of application. The spider on the water frame requires a very long cotton fibers, could be used by cotton bushes for the species only very specific. The supplied fibers are stretched between weight-bearing rollers, then twisted by the rotating blades and also wound up rotating spindle.

1783 copied Johann Gottfried Brügelmann the water frame by means of industrial espionage for the Ratingen textile factory Cromford, the first factory in continental Europe.

The water frame was suitable for mass production in the 18th century with the help of unskilled assistants, and so it was the skilled textile workers, as the Luddites destroyed especially the factories with the Water frames during the Industrial Revolution.