Patent GB-887651-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to knitting machines and methods
IPC: D04B9/46
Filed: 1958-05-22
Abstract: 887,651. Knitting. SCOTT & WILLIAMS Inc. May 22, 1958 [June 3, 1957], No. 16487/58. Class 74 (2). The heel and toe pockets of a stocking are knitted, by reciprocatory knitting, at both the main feed 2 and the auxiliary feed 4, the needles being initially separated into active and inactive groups with the needles of the inactive group moving at a low level beneath the stitch cams, so that they will not contact the yarns; and narrowing and widening is effected by successively transferring needles, first from the active to the inactive group and then from the inactive to the active group. The suture of Fig. 9 is produced as follows. At each stroke of the cylinder during narrowing, there is a reduction of two needles knitting; a leading needle is moved to the low inactive level and the next needle is made to take yarn at both feeds at tuck level, whilst successive active needles take yarn at both feeds and knit. Thus, two loops (one for each feed) are tucked in with the penultimate loop (200, say) of the immediately preceding course. During the subsequent widening, at each stroke of the cylinder the leading needle tucks but three needles which are trailing the active group are activated so that two active needles are gained per stroke. The needle which forms loop 216, say, is that which tucks as the leading needle in the succeeding stroke (i.e. in forming the succeeding two courses) so that a loop of each yarn is tucked in with loop 216; and in the white yarn course 206, say, the three added loops are 214, 218 and 220. A gusset may be produced by introducing a number of needles put out of action during narrowing, so forming a single-sided suture, knitting the gusset whilst narrowing is continued and, upon completion of the gusset, removing again from action the introduced needles, whereafter widening is carried out as before. The needles are selected through the medium of pattern jacks 50, each rockable about a fulcrum 52 and having removable butts 56 and 60 and a lower butt 62. The jacks are rocked by the action of cams 88, 90, 92 on the one hand and cams 70, 72, 74 on the other, to bring their operating butts out of or into the path of raising cams 94, 98, 108, 102, 106. Cams 112, 114 may act on the butts 56 of jacks to raise them, despite the fact that such jacks have been so selected by a cam 90 or 92 that they would not, otherwise, be raised. A heel 64 on each jack co-operates with grooves 66, 68 provided in the needle cylinder at levels corresponding with jack selection and needle tucking height and the sloping sides of these grooves cam the butts 62 outwardly as the jacks move between the two positions. Picks 116, 118, 120, 122 are associated with the cams 98, 106, 108 and 102. As a group of pattern jacks, following a group which have missed the jack-raising cam 102, say, rise up that cam, the butt 62 of the leading jack engages a finger 128 of pick 122, causing the pick to rock, so that the butt 62 is engaged by a shoulder 130 to be rocked inwardly. Assuming that the shoulder is of single butt width, the butt of the next jack will engage an edge 132 to continue the rocking of the pick and the butt 62 of the leading jack will be pushed off cam 102 at a level indicated by the chain line 133 and corresponding to a rise of the associated needle to tuck level. The pick is located in its rest position by a spring 126. The pick shoulder may be wide enough to pick more than one needle and the several picks may differ in the number of needles picked. The picks may, as at 134, Fig. 3, be located in rest position by a detent 140, itself located against a stop 144 by a spring 146 which is stronger than the pick spring 138, but which can yield to the action of descending butts, to allow the pick to rock downwardly. Sinkers 154 are provided with notches 160 at the backs of their throats; and they are moved outwardly by the action of vertically movable cams 168, 172 and 170, 174 on butts 162, 164 of differing height, and inwardly by cams 176, 178, 180, 182 acting on backs 166. At the beginning of reciprocatory knitting, the sinkers between the idled needles remain in inner position, so that the drawing of the longer stitches for the pouch will not impose a strain on the relatively tighter stitches carried by the idle needles as the needles go under the stitch cams, since these tighter stitches will be merely pulled into the notches 160.