Kind: captions
Language: en
can you explain how a sewing machine
works I mean think about it we've all
seen them there's that little needle
that's moving up and down really fast
leaving a trail of stitches behind them
but if you think about it for a second
how are they doing it because the needle
is never actually going fully through
the fabric if you're hand sewing you
have to pass the needle up and down you
have to let go of the needle and grab
onto it on the other side so in order to
invent the sewing machine we first had
to invent a whole new way of sewing it's
one of these things that almost no one
thinks about but is so important every
piece of clothing you've ever put on
virtually was made by a sewing machine
so in this video I'm going to explain
how sewing machines work and I promise
when you find out you will find it so
incredibly satisfying and what you'll
realize is that these machines are
performing tiny mechanical Miracles
every
second a part of this video was brought
to you by kiwi Co more about them at the
end of the show The pedal is right in
front of your right foot you can gently
rest it it doesn't need a lot of
pressure so easy does it and you should
be able to start going all
right
ah all
right this is amazing I find it
meditative if I were going to sew two
pieces of fabric together this is how I
would do it weaving the needle back back
and forth through both pieces of fabric
this is known as a running Stitch and
there are more sophisticated stitches
you could do but if you're trying to
mechanize any hand Stitch you run into a
major problem which is that anytime you
pass the needle through the fabric you
have to release it on one side and pick
it up again on the other side this is
almost impossible for a machine to do at
least a machine from 200 years ago so in
order to invent the sewing machine we
first needed to come up with a totally
new way of sewing and this came in three
breakthroughs humans have been sewing
clothes for tens of thousands of years
in 2016 researchers found a needle in a
cave in Siberia that dates back to about
50,000 years ago the crazy thing is that
homo sapiens didn't live in that cave it
was inhabited by the denisovans
now extinct species of early humans SO
sewing isn't just a homo sapien thing it
is a human
thing the needle is made of bone but in
other regards it looks like any modern
needle a sharp end pierc through Fabric
and an eye on the other end for the
thread needles have remained basically
unchanged for tens of thousands of years
artifacts from caves in France ancient
Egypt Greece India China and Japan all
look about the same that is until
1755 Charles Frederick vithal was a
German inventor living in England we're
not exactly sure what motivated him some
believe he was trying to invent a sewing
machine but maybe he was just tired of
flipping the needle over twice every
Stitch but what he created was a needle
that was sharp on both sides so you
could pass the needle back and forth
through the fabric without flipping it
over he patented his invention a needle
for ornamenting Fabrics which may have
sped up sewing a little but the
two-sided needle delivered an unexpected
benefit used by all sewing machines up
until this day it moved the eye of the
needle next to the sharp
tip but how does that help when I put
the needle into the fabric the thread
does go below the fabric but when I pull
it out the thread also gets pulled out
so it seems like we've achieved nothing
we need to find a way to tangle the
thread when it's at the bottom of the
Stitch to stop it from pulling out and
luckily there are two ways of doing
this if you can keep a loop of thread
underneath the fabric as I pull the
needle out well then I can move the
fabric over and pass that needle through
the loop forming a little link and if I
do that
again I can form a chain of these
stitches that is why this is known as a
chain
stitch the chain stitch was one of the
first stitches successfully performed by
sewing
machines it's really hard to say who
invented the first sewing machine there
were just so many people working on the
problem at the same time and there are
many competing claims in 1790 Thomas
saint Drew detailed patent drawings for
a sewing machine design but there is no
evidence that he ever built a pro
protype in 1814 Joseph mburger was
granted a patent in Vienna it took him a
decade to build the machine but he never
commercialized it he spent the rest of
his life trying to perfect the design in
1830 Frenchman barel timonier built his
own version it created a chain stitch
with a barbed needle he was granted a
patent and set up a garment Factory with
80 of his machines there they began
manufacturing uniforms for the French
army but this invention caused an uproar
a mob of 200 angry tailor ransacked his
Factory and destroyed all of his
machines it took a few more decades
before sewing machines were reliable
enough to be commercially viable the two
most reliable ways to build a chain
stitch machine were invented at nearly
the same time in 1857 when James Gibbs
and Charles Raymond received their
respective
patents it was easy enough for me to
grab the loop of thread in the model but
it's much more difficult to design a
machine to do this reliably and
repeatedly Charles Raymond's design used
a hook the needle punctures the fabric
and carries the thread down with it then
as the needle moves up the thread
between the eye and the fabric shortens
and buckles forming a little bulge of
thread at exactly this instant the sharp
hook catches the Bulge stretching it
into a loop and as the needle comes back
down the hook moves backwards and the
needle passes through the loop the the
needle comes all the way down and then
as it moves back up the thread between
the eye and the fabric buckles again the
hook catches this bulge pulling the
thread into a loop for the needle to
pass through once
[Music]
more Gibbs had a similar design but the
hook was rotating so as the needle
lowers the hook grabs the thread the
rotating hook spins around the first
Loop is released and then the hook grabs
the second Loop it took Gibbs 37
prototypes all carved out of wood to get
this incredible Looper shape just right
and then that same shape was used on
over 80 models of sewing machines for 80
years the Looper was held by pieces of
metal tightly enough that it didn't fall
out but with enough of a gap for the
thread to pass through all the way
around we're showing a simplified model
here for
clarity but there's a flaw with this
simple way of making a chain stitch
if the thread comes loose you can easily
pull out all the stitching it's
remarkable how quickly and easily the
thread gets pulled out because there's
barely any friction with the
fabric the only friction holding each
stitch in place is the loop from the
previous Stitch so once one goes they
just all go in a chain so people
developed more complex chain stitches
that use more thread and are more robust
you'll likely find chain stitches
holding the Hem of your jeans together
you can also embroider beautiful
patterns with the chain stitch anything
that kind of had decorative stitches is
what it was originally used for but then
it became used for all kind of lettering
and flowers you're sort of doing
gymnastics figuring out if I F it this
direction where is my next PATH going to
be you're trying to kind of think ahead
of yourself and I think as you become
more skilled with the machines too
that's where your work begins to look a
lot more refined
besides the chain stitch there is a
completely different way to secure the
thread and honestly it's kind of Genius
all it requires is two separate spools
of thread now this spool of thread is
called the bobbin so here's how it works
the needle goes through two pieces of
fabric all the way down and then you
pass the second spool of thread
completely through
a loop in the top spool and then bring
the needle back
up pull in the
excess and what we have done is
interlocked these two pieces of thread
that's why this is known as a lock
stitch in 1846 Elias how patented it and
to promote his new creation he staged a
live sewing demonstration him and his
sewing Machine versus five
seamstresses house machine worked but it
wasn't elegant the machine used a curved
needle the fabric hung down vertically
and it could only make stitches in a
straight line 5 years later Alan B
Wilson dramatically improved the lock
stitch sewing machine receiving two
patents one in 1850 and one in
1851 the first patent was for the
vibrating shuttle lock stitch
machine although it's called a vibrating
shuttle it actually oscillates back and
forth and and inside it is a small
bobbin of thread as it moves forward it
catches the top thread from the needle
forming a loop and as the shuttle passes
through this Loop it creates a lock
stitch by intertwining the top thread
with the lower bobbin
[Music]
thread the shuttle's movement is
synchronized with the needle's up and
down
motion the shuttle was pushed around by
pieces of metal tightly enough that it
didn't fall out but with enough of a gap
for the thread to pass all the way
around the shuttle
this type of sewing machine was
incredibly common in the late 1800s many
millions of just the singer model 27
were made and they were built incredibly
robustly there are many machines that
are now over a hundred years old that
are still working sewing machines were
developed before the idea of planned
obsolescence took
off the second patent that Wilson
received in 1851 is the basis for how
most modern sewing machines work instead
of a shuttle moving back and forth the
bobin is inside a rotating hook so let's
see how that works the needle comes down
pulling that top thread and it goes down
really low and then it pops back up a
little bit creating this little bulge
right here and when the rotating hook
comes around it is
grabbed by that rotating hook pulling
even more thread so that this thread can
pass entirely around the bobin and then
needle pops back
up we pull in the
excess and we've
formed another lock stitch like so from
this it might look like you're using
more thread from the top because when
this thread comes in you need to pass an
entire loop around the bobbin but that
thread then gets pulled back up so we
actually filmed in slow motion a sewing
machine using a gradient thread so you
can see just how much thread is getting
pulled in from the top it looks like a
lot but ultimately you use the same
amount of thread from the top spool as
from the bottom
spool the tension needs to be identical
on both the top and bottom thread so the
same amount of thread is used in each
Stitch if the tension is off the Stitch
won't meet perfectly in the middle of
the two Fabrics leading to a much weaker
Stitch this is true for both vibrating
shuttle and rotating hook lock stitch
machines
but what does result is a lot of
friction you can imagine this piece of
thread is getting pulled back down and
back up a whole bunch of times with
every Stitch so what was developed was
actually a Groove in the sewing needle
right here to reduce the friction
between the thread and the fabric as it
has to keep getting pulled down to go
around the bobbin and then get pulled
back up when it's tensioned again this
resulted in less fraying of both thread
and fabric and resulted in a cleaner
Stitch practically all modern sewing
machine needles have a groove on one
side but there's still an important
piece missing after a stitch has been
made how do you move the
fabric in the earliest sewing machines
the fabric would be moved by hand after
every Stitch but that was obviously slow
inefficient and the stitches wouldn't
have been identically spaced a few
designs were attempted but the most
successful one was also invented by Alan
B Wilson his idea was a small piece of
metal the foot that would press down on
the fabric when the needle is not in the
fabric a small piece of metal with
grooves in it pushes up from below it
grabs the fabric and then moves back a
fraction of an inch advancing it to
where the next Stitch should be this
design is used in practically all sewing
machines today they're called feed dogs
there are some modified versions of this
idea like the universal feed machine
used for chain stitch
embroidery with these style of machines
there's a handle underneath the machine
and it rotates the entire nose of the
machine okay and this presser
foot that will basically Advance the
fabric in
360° so right now we've got this hooked
up to a single motor M but back then
these uh cables went up to the ceiling
and were all powered by one big
generator one big like steam power or
coal powered generator and so that I'm
sure the factories were so loud
there used to be a pin we we've taken
them off just because we don't need them
anymore and what you would do is youd
pull down and it would immediately
Engage The Machine because this was
spinning
continuously cuz it was all hooked up by
one motor like nowadays when you start a
machine you can kind of like feather it
a little bit you can start slow back
then they were going like 10,000 RPM
right away you got to got to be ready
yep those women were Heroes I mean those
they unbelievable skill
the most famous name associated with
sewing machines is that of Isaac Singer
but singer did not invent the sewing
machine he was a shrewd businessman
buying up patents for various parts and
building his company on that inspired by
interchangeable parts that he saw in
production of firearms he optimized the
production process and his company was
able to drop the price of sewing
machines from $100 to around $10 that's
just over $300 in 2023 terms
this lower price meant he could sell the
machines to families rather than to
corporations singer's business was also
one of the earliest in the world to
offer an installment payment plan
allowing the buyer to pay it off over a
few months rather than paying the entire
cost upfront singer became one of the
largest corporations in the world and
the first American multinational
company before the Advent of sewing
machines it would take over 12 hours to
sew a single shirt it now takes less
than 30 minutes in 1900 the average
American family spent about 15% of its
total income on clothing in 2003 it was
less than 4% but despite spending less
we own more clothes in 2019 the
worldwide average number of garments
owned was over
130 each year 100 billion garments are
produced and just in the us alone 11.3
million tons of clothing ends up in land
Phill that's nearly 35 kg of clothing
for every man woman and child that is
thrown away each
year but should we blame sewing
machines the sewing machine is brilliant
invented iterated upon and improved by
dozens of
people they really have revolutionized
the world all it took was inventing a
completely new way to sew
hey this part of the video was brought
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