Patent GB-146448-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in anti-raveling stocking knitting machines
IPC: D04B1/06
Filed: 1920-07-03
Abstract: 146,448. Hemphill Co., (Assignees of Bos worth, G. P.). Aug. 31, 1914, [Convention date]. Circular machines.-Relates chiefly to means applicable though not exclusively to the " Banner " type of machine, whereby a course of knitting can be thrown in, say, at the top of the calf of a stocking leg to prevent loops from running back beyond this point. The mechanism is also appiicable to the formation of starting courses. To make an anti-ravel course, the needles are taken down before they reach the yarn feed A by a radially movable lowering cam 7 to the level of the jacks 15 which are situated under alternate needles. The subsequent rise of the jacks 15 on the cam 17 raises the corresponding needles into position for taking yarn at the feeder A, while the remaining needles pass below the cams 4, 4<1>, and hold their loops, thus producing an antiravel course. The machine is provided with shortbutted heel and toe needles b and long-butted instep needles a, and the cam 7 is put half-way in while the short butts are passing it by a patterndrum projection 29 which acts as a lever 25, connexion 24, and bell-crank 22, and allows the spring 19 to force the face of the cam against the short butts. When the long butts come round, the cam 7 moves all the way in. The cam 7 is retired in two stages by the step surface 30, the first stage occurring while the long butts are passing the cam 7. Instead of using separate jacks, alternate needles may be furnished with long tails 31, which are acted on bv a cam similar to the cam 17. The side cam 10, which acts to elevate needles during reciprocating knitting to the level d is vertically pivoted at 12 to allow the butts to pass across its face 13<x> when travelling in the direction of the arrow. After the completed stocking is run off the needles, the production of the next stocking is effected automatically by lowering the yarn guide and moving the cam 7 inwardly by means of the pattern drum projection 29<x> to divide the needles so that alternate needles first take the yarn as a starting course, the other needles remaining down and having the yarn floated by them by the action of the web-holders. On the next course all the needles rise to take yarn, and formation of stitches proceeds in the ordinary way. The impact of the butts passed down the cam 7 on the horizontal part of the track jars open any latch which may have remained closed up to this point, and this action is supplemented by the elevating cam 17. Fig. 10 shows control means, including a plurality of pattern drum projections 29<a>, 29<b>, whereby a number of successive starting courses, one for each projection, can be made, and the formation of drop stitches due to the failure of one or more needles to take the yarn of the first starting course, is prevented. Instead of the lever 25 being pivoted at one end as shown in Fig. 4, it is pivoted at about the middle of its length, and the end remote from the link 24 is connected by a link 40 to a lever 38 pivoted at 39 and operated intermittently through a striker arm 41 on the shaft 42 of the change-motion gear segment is. The end of the lever 38 has two step abutments 43, 44. The arm 41 first strikes the abutment 43 and sets the lever 25 and connexions in the half-way position, whereby the cam 7, Figs. 1 and 4, is withdrawn from the path of the short butt needles. Continuing its movement the arm 41 strikes the abutment 44, thereby moving the lever 25 down to the full limit of its movement to withdraw the cam 7 from the long butts. Both movements take place while the drum 27<1> is at rest, so that none of the pattern surface is required for this operation.