Speed′er.
(Cotton-manufacture.) A machine invented by Mason as a substitute for the bobbin and fly frame, by which slivers of cotton from the carding-machine are slightly twisted, and thereby converted into rovings. The sliver is drawn between rollers, as in the bobbin and fly frame, but the bobbins are arranged horizontally and rotated by rollers on which they revolve. Being rotated by their peripheries, their rate of winding is constant, and the copping rail is dispensed with. The twist, which is given in the bobbin and fly frame by the rotation of the spindle and flyer, is given in the speeder by an endless belt, which rapidly rotates the guiding tubes of the sliver as it comes from the drawing rollers. The bobbin is made into a cop with conical ends, as in the other machine, each successive layer being shortened, as its diameter increases, so that each shall have the same length of yarn.