John T. Taylor

“ The Cost of a Piece of Cloth.—Besides the cost of material and the weaving wage, the expenses of the manufacturer must be taken into account. When a manufacturer makes only one kind of cloth, his expenses will obviously not be so proportionately great as another manufacturer’s who only takes a single order of a particular make. ”

“ Where figures are required to be thrown up on a leno ground a Jacquard mounting is required. It is possible to weave a plain figure on a gauze ground with an ordinary Jacquard harness and an ordinary doup stave in front, but this can only be done on a pure gauze ground—that is, one end crossing one. A plain figure on a ground of this kind does not afford a sufficiently powerful contrast to the ground. It is necessary in order to produce a really efficient contrast to have two ends crossing two and weaving separately in the plain. ”

“ One of the most important motions in the power loom is that by which the loom is stopped automatically when the shuttle is caught in the shed or for some reason does not enter the shuttle-box. A motion of this kind has always been considered necessary since the introduction of the power loom. If the shuttle be caught in the shed as the reed is beating up, it is obvious that great damage to the warp must result unless the loom is brought to a sudden stop or the reed thrown out. ”

“ There is, of course, a limit to the number of threads of a certain count which can be put into a plain cloth. Assuming that the counts of warp and weft are equal, and that the number of picks per inch required is the same as the ends, the number of threads per inch which can be satisfactorily put into the cloth would not much exceed half the number which could be placed side by side in one inch. ”

“ In a double-scale split harness every hook lifted takes up two ends, and thus the bindings in the figure will appear in twos, and will therefore appear rather coarse. In the ground every end is woven separately by the shafts, and these will require to be lifted to give the required ground weave. All that is required, therefore, is to put the lifting dots on the point paper in the position required to operate the hooks which lift the shafts. Except for the limit with regard to the ground weave, designs for the split harness are prepared in the same manner as for an ordinary harness. ”

“ It is necessary, therefore, to lift the end B about halfway up at the moment the crossing end begins to come down and to pass to the other side of B. If the end A has not to cross for the next pick, it would not be necessary to lift the end B at all. In a single-lift machine the doup will get to the bottom before the first stave begins to rise, and therefore there would be no difficulty in the end crossing. In a double-lift dobby the staves containing the ends round which the doup thread crosses are lifted partly up every pick by a lever worked from the crank arm of the loom. ”

“ If the threads of a new warp are similar in number and counts to those of the finished warp, and are to pass through the shedding harness and reed also in a similar manner, it is more economical to twist the threads of a new warp separately to the corresponding threads of the old warp, and then draw the twisted portion of the warp bodily forward through the healds and reed. ”

“ In designing for Jacquard weaving care must be taken that the ground weave will divide exactly into the number of ends in the harness, otherwise the pattern will be broken. Sometimes the figure will allow of the ground being broken at some point or other without the break being visible. Such opportunity occurs where the ground narrows down to a fine point; but in ordinary cases, where it is necessary to make a design with a ground weave repeating on a number not a measure of 400, some of the mails must be “cast-out.” ”

“ Toiletings.—In toilet quilts a raised plain figure is formed by an extra warp from a separate beam interweaving with the plain cloth where the ground of the design is required. Fig. 395 is a portion of a design for a cloth of this kind. Every third end is an “extra” end, and where the raised figure is required these ends are left down, but where the ground of the design is required the extra ends interweave [Pg 298] with the plain cloth and bind it down. The tension of the extra warp causes the figure to stick up more than would otherwise be the case. ”

“ The slackener is usually in the form of a lever, one end of which can be lifted by the dobby or whatever shedding motion is used, and when the dobby lifts one end of the lever the rod is moved downward, thus slackening the warp which is drawn over the rod. Whenever the doup is lifted the crossing warp must be slackened, or it would cause the standard end B to be lifted, as it is crossed under it. ”

“ If it is required to test the weft in a piece of grey cloth it is usual to take out of the cloth 120 yards, or one “lea.” This is one-seventh of a hank, and therefore if the weight of 120 yards is divided into 1,000 grains—the one-seventh part of a pound—the quotient will be the counts of the yarn. The reason of this will be obvious when it is remembered that if the weight of one hank is divided into 7000 grains, or 1 lb., the result is the number of hanks in 1 lb., or the counts. ”

“ In a fabric in which there are only a few plain ends in the pattern, the other ends being loosely interwoven, it does not follow that the take-up will be as much as in a plain cloth, as the plain ends will compress the weft more at the point of intersection than could occur if all the ends were weaving plain. ”

“ Plain cloths may be ornamented by using threads of different colours and of different thicknesses, as, for instance, if four picks of blue and four picks of white are alternately put into a cloth, the warp of which is composed of four ends blue and four ends white alternately, a check is formed although the weave is quite plain. A check may also be formed on a plain cloth by using one or more thick threads at intervals in both warp and weft. ”

“ The force of the beat up is chiefly exerted upon the pick when the crank is nearly at the front centre, and the force exerted will also depend considerably upon the tension on the warp; but the slay is doing some work in beating up from the moment the reed begins to move the pick forward. ”

“ In some looms the weft is replenished only when the previous supply fails either by breaking or becoming exhausted; and some are furnished with “weft-feeler” motions to put the weft-changing mechanism into operation and thus replenish the weft just before the previous supply is entirely depleted, thereby preventing broken or missing picks of weft which would produce faulty cloth. A warp-stop motion, which is sometimes applied to ordinary looms, is an almost indispensable accessory to an automatic loom. ”

“ Of course, the speed at which the heald moves upward will be controlled by the shape of the tappet exactly as it is in its downward stroke, but in the up stroke of the heald, the tappet is only acting negatively. With roller tops the movement is positive, as the rollers are so constructed that as one stave is taken down by the tappets another is taken up. ”

“ In swivel weaving each figuring thread is placed in a small shuttle, which receives a horizontal motion by means of a rack. The small shuttles can be lifted out of, and dropped into, the warp, so as to allow the figuring thread to be passed through the shed where the spot is formed, and therefore twill or satin, and shaded effects, can be formed in the spot. In lappet weaving the floats cannot be bound in the middle.
The chief advantage of lappet weaving is that it can easily and satisfactorily be applied to a power-loom. ”

“ Oscillating tappets are situated at one end of a loom, above the crank shaft, from which they are driven by wheel gearing and suitable connecting arms. They are chiefly employed on looms weaving fustians and similar heavy and strong fabrics.
In plain looms with under tappets, the healds are generally connected round a top roller or cone, so that when the tappet is pressing one stave down, it is also taking the other stave up. The shedding is thus positive. For weaving twills, satins, and such weaves, either spring, roller, or pulley top motions are used. ”

“ A saving of time is thus effected, and the looms can be run quicker than with single-lift machines. A crank L on the end of the bottom, or picking, shaft is connected by means of a lifting-rod E to the end of a horizontal arm M, mounted on a shaft G, which constitutes a fulcrum for the arm. On one end of shaft G, at the rear of the machine, there is fixed a toothed quadrant H, which, through the medium of a small wheel, transmits motion to a similar toothed quadrant H′ fixed on the end of a shaft G′ ”

“ When the required number of sections for a warp have been made, they are compressed between flanges side by side upon a mandril of a running-off machine, and their yarn run from them simultaneously on to a weaver’s beam. Sometimes a sectional warper works in conjunction with an automatic stop-motion similar to that of a beam warping machine, in which case bobbins are contained in a V-shaped creel. They also sometimes work without a stop-motion. ”

“ On this system, as there are eight rows in a machine, by taking the comber board eight rows deep the harness becomes what is called a straight neck. With the London system, the end of the machine facing the weaver, there must be a twist in each pattern in the harness. There is not much to choose between [Pg 151] the two systems. Some prefer the London tie, as they say the twist in the harness causes the harness threads to support each other, and so last longer. The Norwich system is the more common, especially in the cotton trade. ”

“ The advantage of using only one needle for the doup and slackening hooks is that it prevents the possibility of the slackener being missed when the doup lifts, as well as being a saving in cards.
By lifting the crossing ends with the ground harness for two or more picks, followed by lifting the same ends in the doup harness for a similar number of picks, an open leno fabric is produced, and a plain figure can be woven by lifting the ground harness plain, or a floated figure can be formed exactly as with an ordinary Jacquard. ”

“ Detached figures may be arranged in the order of any satin, but the regular satins show the figures too much in lines, and the system is not much practised on that account. Irregular satins give much better effects. Fig. 376 is a design consisting of six spots arranged in six-end satin order, on thirty ends and thirty picks; the ground being five-end satin. In making the design the space to be covered is divided into six parts, both in warp and weft, by the crosses at the corners of the squares. ”

“ Honeycomb Cloth.—In this style of cloth the threads are interlaced so as to form squares, the centres of which are lower than the ridges which form the sides. Fig. 281 is a honeycomb pattern on ten ends and ten picks. It will be noticed that the ridges or raised portions of the honeycomb are formed by the gradually increasing floats of the weft and warp threads. The hollows are formed by the threads weaving plain for a few ends and picks. Any size of pattern, within reasonable limits, may be formed on this principle. ”