All language subtitles for The Surprising Genius of Sewing Machines (720p_24fps_AV1-128kbit_AAC).Engels

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 foot foot 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 uh 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 prototype

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 thimonier 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 ult 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

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 fill 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 SE

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 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 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 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 100 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

bobbin 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 g

radiant 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

machine

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 bobin 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

machines 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 pressed 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 mhm 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 you'd

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 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

landfill 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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