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Glossary of Specialized Terms
- Bobbin boy
- A worker in a throwing plant who takes yarn from the bale and brings it to the person who soaks it in a solution.
- Buncher
- A machine that takes single strands of wire, draws them inside the machine, and then twists them together to form a cable or electrical wire. A Kinrei buncher is a buncher manufactured in Japan by the Kinrei Corporation and then customized by Watson Machine to fit domestic requirements.
- Entering
- The process of putting the pattern into the harness of a loom; there are different kinds of patterns, from plain to fancy.
- Floor boy
- A person in a weaving plant who cleans the floor and helps other workers with menial work.
- Foodways
- The many ways in which food and the activities encompassing its production distribution, preparation, serving, and consumption, become culturally meaningful and expressive.
- Hot Texas Wiener
- An all-beef hot dog "blanched" or par-cooked in 350-degree vegetable oil in a fry basket for a few minutes; cooked by another hot vegetable-oil bath in a tilted metal pan until done, and then placed in a bun; topped (in strict order) with a spicy, ballpark-style mustard; chopped onions; and a chili sauce containing ground beef, tomatoes, more onion, and a "secret" blend of spices including cayenne, cinnamon, allspice, and cumin.
- Jig
- A device for guiding a tool or holding machine parts in place during assembly.
- Lead man
- The person in charge of workers assigned to a specific task, or in charge of a whole shift of workers.
- Montescaglioso
- A small town in the Basilicata region of southern Italy.
- Montesi
- People with ties to Montescaglioso.
- Pay-off
- A device used to reel in completed cable as it comes off a buncher or strander. Horizontal pay-off machines pay out wire or cable at a synchronized rate so that the individual wires can then be twisted and combined using a take-up machine like a buncher or a strander.
- San Rocco do Montescaglioso
- A social club for people from Montescaglioso. Each year the club hosts the Festa San Rocco, a religious parade celebrating the saint's day for San Rocco, which begins at St. Anthony's Catholic Church and finishes at the club.
- Strander
- A machine, loaded with spools of wire, that twists strands together to form a cable or electrical wire.
- Take-off
- A device used to support spools of wire being supplied to a buncher.
- Throwing plant
- A plant that processes raw silk, then winds it on bobbins according to manufacturer's specifications.
- Traverse screw
- A device used to guide a jig that lays wire down evenly as it is taken up on a reel or spool.
- Twining machines
- Devices that take several strands of twine and twist them together to form ropes.
- Twister
- A worker who ties together the threads of a new warp and an old warp on a loom. Speed and accuracy are important. On average, a warp has about ten thousand threads or "ends"; twisting a warp this size takes an experienced twister between three and four hours.
- Warper
- A worker who prepares and arranges individual yarn threads ("ends") that become the warp of a woven fabric. A central part of a warper's work is laying thousands of yarn threads down in parallel order on a large cylinder called a beam.
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