Martin, C.

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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fl. c. 1861 Belgium

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Belgian maker of one of the most popular types of tape condensers.

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The object of condensing, the last process in carding, is to obtain a roving, or slightly twisted yarn which is the same thickness and weight throughout its length. In a tape condenser, the web of fibres from the last swift of the carder is divided into the requisite number of ribbons, which are supported on tapes before being rubbed into round rovings and wound onto bobbins ready for spinning.

It was Martin who introduced in 1861 what became the most common type of condenser on the European continent. It divided the web by a combined tearing and cutting action between leather tapes and a pair of rigid rollers. As its division of the web was more minute than with earlier machines, its product was more suitable for fine yarns, so it was accepted rapidly in Belgium and France but much more slowly in England and the United States.

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Further Reading

C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. V, Oxford: Clarendon Press (includes an account of this invention).

L.J.Mills (ed.), 1928, The Textile Educator, Vol. III, London; and W.E.Morton, 1937, An Introduction to the Study of Spinning, London (both provide an explanation of the condenser system).

RLH