Spinning

Spinning pendant is the earliest tool used for spinning in Chinese history. Its appearance can be traced back to the Neolithic age at least. The early unearthed spinning wheels are generally made of stone pottery pieces by simple grinding, with different shapes, mostly in the shape of drum, circle, oblate, quadrilateral, etc., some wheel surfaces are also painted with patterns.

The emergence of spinning pendants only changed the textile production in primitive society, but also had a profound influence on the development of spinning tools in later generations. As a simple spinning tool, it has been used for thousands of years. Even in the 20th century, some nomadic Tibetans in Tibet still use it to spin.

Spinning wheel

According to the structure, the commonly used spinning wheel in ancient times can be divided into two types: hand spinning wheel foot spinning wheel. The image data of hand-held spinning wheel has been found many times in the unearthed cultural relics of Han Dynasty, which shows that hand-held spinning wheel has been very popular as early as Han Dynasty. Pedal spinning wheel is developed on the basis of hand spinning wheel. The earliest image data is the Eastern Han Dynasty portrait stone unearthed in Sihong County, Jiangsu Province. The hand-held spinning wheel drives the spinning wheel by hand. When operating, it is necessary to shake the spinning wheel with one hand engage in spinning with the other hand. The foot spinning wheel drives the spinning wheel the foot. During operation, the spinning woman can spin with her hands, greatly improving the working efficiency. Spinning wheel has been the most popular spinning machine since it appeared. Even in modern times, it is still used as the main spinning tool in some remote areas.

Hydraulic spinning wheel

In ancient times, the number of spindles was generally 2-3, with a maximum of 5 spindles. During the song Yuan Dynasties, with the development of social economy, a large spinning wheel with dozens of spindles was gradually produced on the basis of various handed down spinning machines tools. Different the original spinning wheel, the big spinning wheel has the following characteristics: the number of spindles is up to dozens, it is driven by hydraulic power. These characteristics make the big spinning wheel have the rudiment of modern spinning machinery adapt to large-scale specialized production. In the case of hemp spinning, the general spinning wheel can spin up to 3 Jin per day, while the large spinning wheel can spin more than 100 Jin per day night. When spinning, enough hemp is needed to meet the production capacity. Hydraulic spinning wheel is an important invention of using natural force in textile machinery in ancient China. For example, in terms of spinning machines tools with hydraulic power as the driving force, China is more than four centuries earlier than the West.

Pedal loom

Treadle loom is a general term for textile machine with treadle heald opening device. The earliest time of treadle loom is lack of reliable historical data. According to the historical records, the number of cloth silk presented by the princes in the Warring States period is 100 times higher than that in the spring Autumn period, as well as the historical materials of Han Dynasty such as stone portraits carved with treadle looms unearthed in various places, the researchers speculated that the appearance of treadle looms could be traced back to the Warring States period. By the Qin Han Dynasties, the Yellow River Basin the Yangtze River Basin had been widely used. It is an important invention in the development history of loom to use foot pedal to lift the heald opening. It frees the Weaver's hands lifting the heald action, is specialized in shuttle feeding weft beating, which greatly improves the productivity. Taking the production of plain weave as an example, it is 20 to 60 times higher than the original loom, each person can weave 0.3 to 1 meter per hour.