Spinning and Fibre-Preparation Machinery

Spinning and fibre-preparation machinery covers the devices that convert raw textile fibres such as cotton, wool, flax and silk into a continuous, twisted yarn ready for weaving or knitting. Before fibres reach a spinning frame they typically pass through carding and combing machines that align and clean the fibrous mass, then through drawing and roving machines that draw it into progressively finer, slightly twisted strands. The spinning stage itself, whether performed on a hand-turned spinning wheel, a mechanized mule, a ring frame or a modern open-end or air-jet unit, adds the final twist that gives the yarn its strength and cohesion. The mechanization of this stage during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beginning with devices such as the spinning jenny and water frame, was a central driver of the Industrial Revolution, moving yarn production from individual households into powered textile mills.