VERTICAL LAYING-MACHINE MAKING OIL-WELL CABLE FORMING MACHINES (WINDING REEL ON FARTHER MACHINE REMOVED) ROPE-MAKING MACHINERY, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY] The illustration opposite page 85 shows the machines which make Plymouth Lathyarn and Hide Rope. Although somewhat smaller than the type just described, these machines are constructed and operate in practically the same manner. The speed of their flyers is naturally much slower, however, since the goods they work on need not be twisted so hard as a rope strand. For the laying process, in which the strands are united to make a rope, the full reels are removed from the forming machines by overhead chains, as shown on the opposite page, and by like means are placed in the vertical flyers of the laying-machine. The strands pass through openings in the top-piece just above the flyers and converge into a central tube still higher up to form the rope. [Illustration: REMOVING REEL WITH STRAND FROM FORMING MACHINE] When the machine is in operation the whole lower portion, from the tube down, revolves, either to the right or left as the goods require, and thus puts the twist into the rope. This twist being opposite, always, to that of the strands, the natural tendency of the latter as they are laid together would be to loosen up. To regulate this, each flyer is made to revolve on its own axis--in a direction opposite to the general direction of the machine. Each reel revolves also on its axis to feed out the strand--the effect of the changing load being met as before by a friction attachment. The overhead pulleys, which perform the same mission for the rope that the capstans previously did for the strands, deliver the finished product onto a belt-driven coiling reel where it is guided into even layers by the workman tending the machine. As already explained, the laying-machine is used in the same way when three ropes are made into a cable. When a four-strand rope is to be turned out the machine has four strand-reels. If the strands are to be laid around a heart rope, as in transmission goods, the heart feeds directly into the twist tube from a smaller reel placed on the top-piece previously mentioned. All the foregoing machines are equipped with ingenious devices for measuring the strand or rope as it is made, so that the attendant can tell instantly from the gauge how many feet have been run. The features we have here touched on are only a few of the many that have transformed the final stages of rope-making from a laborious task--dependent for its success on the skill of the individual expert--into quick, sure operations where every problem is met with the unfailing accuracy of a perfect machine. Rope nowadays is, generally speaking, made more scientifically, more uniformly than it was in the days of strictly hand processes. And the end is not yet. Better and still better rope should mark the years to come. [Illustration: FOUR-STRAND COMPOUND LAYING-MACHINE] [Illustration]