Card Clothing: Twin-Toothed Wire Staples Set in Shaved Leather (Ure, 1839)

Card clothing is the toothed face of a card: leather set with rows of bent wire staples. Andrew Ure's Dictionary of Arts (1839) explains why it is hard to make well. Every staple gives two teeth, and both teeth must be bent to exactly the same angle; the twin holes for each staple must slope at the same angle through the leather; and the leather must be the same thickness everywhere, or the teeth stand at different lengths and the card works unevenly. Factories shaved the leather to an even thickness, losing about half its weight, and gave the wire and leather out to be put together by hand. Ure gives no wire metal, gauge, tooth length, angle or hole spacing; those are unknown here. Source: Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines (1839), CARDS. Picture: his figs. 267-269, card teeth and one staple.