Pin.
1. A small piece of headed and pointed wire used as a dress fastening. The pins used by the ladies of ancient Egypt were usually of bronze; more expensive ones were of silver or gold. A collection of twenty-five bronze pins from the subterranean vaults of Thebes are in the Museum of the Louvre. A number are also in the Abbott Collection, New York City. Some of the ancient Egyptian pins are 7 or 8 inches long, and have large golden heads or a band of gold at the upper end, these latter being probably used as hair-pins. The ancient Mexicans also used pins, but generally employed the thorns on the agave as a substitute. The pins mentioned in the Bible were those of metal for fastening the hanging around the court of the temple, and were like tent-pins; and others of wood, mentioned by Ezekiel, which were in fact wooden pegs driven into a wall to hang clothes upon. The Roman pins had round, square, perforated, or ornamented heads; were usually of bronze; were from 1 1/2 to 8 inches long, and were sometimes of wood, ivory, or bone. Hair-pins were common for holding up the knot of braided hair. Before the invention of pins there were many pretty and ingenious devices for fastening the dresses and ornaments of both sexes, such as ribbons, loop-holes, laces with pearls and tags, clasps, hooks and eyes, and skewers made of gold, silver, and brass. From the latter pins were derived, being only miniature skewers. The first mention of brass pins in the English statutes is in 1483, when their importation was prohibited. An act of Henry VIII., A. D. 1543, indicates the clumsy things they were: “No person shall put to sale any pinnes, but only such as shall be double-headed, and have the heads soldered fast to the shank of the pinne, well smoothed, the shank well shaven, the point well and round filed, canted and sharpened.” The mode of making them was much improved about 1560. Catherine Howard, queen of Henry VIII., it is said, used brass pins brought from France. Before the introduction of Wright's pin-making machine, 1824, the following was the process: Brass wire was straightened by drawing it between pins set in zigzag order on a bench, and was then cut into lengths for six pins. These were taken a number at a time, and pointed at one end by grinding on a coarse and a fine grindstone. A length for a pin was then out from each wire, and the process was repeated till the pieces of wire were used up. The heads were made from pieces of a fine wire coiled around a mandrel, which was then slipped out of the coil. Two convolutions were cut off for each head, and were then annealed. These bicoils were put in a tray before little boys, who fastened them on to the pins by a foot-worked hammer and an anvil. The pins were then cleansed by boiling in sour beer, wine lees, or tartar, and tinned by being laid in alternate strata with grain tin and boiled; washed, winnowed with a fan, and finally inserted by hand in the papers. Of late years iron wire has been largely substituted for brass in the pin manufacture, making a cheaper though less enduring article. In Wright's patent, the main shaft of the machine gives motion in its rotation to a number of sliders, levers, and wheels, which work the different parts of the apparatus. A slider pushes forward pinchers, which draw wire from a reel at every rotation of the shaft, and advance such a length of wire as will produce one pin. A die cuts off this length by the descent of its upper jaw, and the latter then opens a carrier, which takes on the wire to the pointing apparatus. Here it is received by a revolving holder, while a bevel-edged file-wheel, rapidly turning, gives to the wire its first rough point. It proceeds immediately by a second carrier to a finer file-wheel, by which the process of pointing is finished. A third carrier transfers the pin to the first heading-die, and by the advance of a steel punch one end of the pin-wire is forced into a recess, whereby the head is partially produced. A fourth carrier removes the pin to a second die, where the heading is completed. When the heading-bar retires, a forked lever draws the pin from the die and drops it into a receptacle beneath. This completes the production of the pin so far as the machine is concerned, but it has yet to be whitened, polished, sorted, and stuck. The first process is effected by rolling them in a rotating barrel containing sawdust; after removal from this they are placed in kettles, between perforated plates of tin, which form alternate layers with the pins. Very dilute nitric acid is added, and boiled for three hours, when the pins, covered with an almost infinitely thin coating of tin, are withdrawn, being then of a dull whitish hue. They are again rolled in a barrel with hot sawdust to give them the final polish. The perfect and imperfect pins are then separated by a series of belts having a combined horizontal and oscillating movement, which retain the defective ones on the belts until arriving at their ends, while those of perfect form, having no hold on the belts, are shaken off into a receptacle below. To separate those of different sizes, they are transferred to an inclined plane, down which they slide to a horizontally revolving wheel provided with sets of steel fingers, each of which is adapted to grasp pins of a particular length and distribute them into separate receptacles. Having been sorted, they are next stuck into the papers. This may be effected by the hand-machine or the powerma-chine. In the former the pins are placed in a hopper, and are caught by their heads between conductors which convey them through a goose-neck to a slide having as many notches as there are to be pins in a row: when these are filled the slide is withdrawn, a crimper seizes the paper and holds it while the pins are driven through. In the power sticking-machine the pins are placed upon a slowly revolving table, from which they drop into a revolving cylinder having longitudinal ribs, which transfer them to an endless chain, the links of which are notched so as to receive the pins, which hang by their heads and are carried forward to a gate, where they are driven into the paper, which is simultaneously crimped and held to receive them. Pins of peculiar forms and sizes are made for specific purposes. Among these may be mentioned diaper, dress, cloak, scarf, shawl pins, whose names indicate their duty. Besides these are others used in the toilet or about the worktable, such as the breast-pin, hair-pin, sewing-pin, etc. 2. A peg or bolt of wood or metal, having many uses. Among these may be cited, — a. A bedstead-pin, projecting from the rail to hold the cord. b. A belaying-pin, for coiling ropes upon. c. A coupling-pin, uniting the draw-heads of adjacent railway-cars. d. A tent-pin, to which the ropes are fastened. e. A treenail. 3. The axis of a sheave. An axis of a joint, as of the gimbal or compassjoint. 4. A clothes-pin, to grip a garment to a clothesline. 5. The bull's-eye of a target. 6. The peg of a stringed instrument on which it is wound in tightening. [1706] 7. The linch-pin of an axle. 8. The turning axis of a capstan, crane, windlass, etc.9. (Locksmithing.) The part of a key-stem which enters the lock. See key.
10. (Joinery.) The smaller member of a dovetail which fits into the socket or receiving portion. 11. To swage by striking with the peen of a hammer; as splaying an edge of an iron hoop to give it the flare corresponding to that of the cask.
