Spool

a small cylinder of wood or other material on which to wind yarn or thread. The cylinder is provided with a projecting rim at each end to prevent the turns of thread from slipping off. Wooden spools are of a single piece and are turned in a lathe. A writer in the Dixie Wood Worker of Atlanta say:

One of the industries which deals with small things, yet which is one of the utmost importance to the country's commerce, is the manufacture and export of spool wood. This business is peculiar to the New England States, and is centered in Maine. Spool factories of this State are now turning out 800,000,000 spools annually, with a market value of nearly $1,000,000.

The best quality of timber is used for the manufacture of spools. White birch, which is used almost exclusively for this industry, reaches the factory in the form of bars from one-half to two and nine-sixteenths inches square, and from two and one-fourth to four feet long. These bars must be absolutely clear. The birch is cut in winter and sawed in small portable mills, which operate near some railroad line, about two and one-third cords being required for 1,000 feet of bars. After sawing, the bars are piled crisscross, in order to facilitate seasoning, and, protected from the weather, are allowed to season until June. The spool-bar mills in Maine turn out about 15,000,000 feet of bars during the year, and approximately the same amount of material is manufactured into spools in the state.

The machines for making spools are complicated, and require skilled men for their operation. The spools drop from the lathe at the rate of one per second, and must be perfectly uniform and true. The finished spools are marketed in this country largely in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, while the spool-bars are largely exported to Greenock and Glasgow, Scotland, and to Hull and Fleetwood, England. Shipments to these points are made mostly from Bangor, as much as 8,000,000 feet having been sent from that port in a season.