On the first floor of the old storage building, « the Solvent » houses a collection of several dozen old textile machines manufactured in Verviers and elsewhere. Among the oldest are three machines built by William Cockerill and his sons themselves in the early 19th century. The machines cover all phases of wool processing up to the packing of sheets before shipment, and cover two centuries of textile history.
Most of these machines were donated to the city for inclusion in a future Wool Museum. The museum, which became the "Tourist Centre for Wool and Fashion", was inaugurated in 1999 but only displayed a small selection and most of the machines were stored at « the Solvent » four years later, after having almost been scrapped. Ever since, the collection has became richer by the learning machines of the former textile school of Verviers, and by machines from a private collection acquired and deposited by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
Since 2005, a group of volunteers, initially made up of former textile workers under the direction of a retired museum foreman, has been reassembling the machines that arrived in pieces and presenting them. Some machines were also restored to working order.