IMPROVEMENTS IN KNITTING MACHINERY
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Archibald Turner, of Leicester, Elastic Web Manu-
facturer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN KNITTING MACHINERY,"
Sealed the 24th January 1862, and dated the 9th November 1861.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Archibald Turner at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th
November 1861.
IARCHIBALD TURNER, of Leicester, Elastic Web Manufacturer, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN KNITTING
MACHINERY," to be as follows:-
My Invention, of improvements in knitting machinery relates to that
description of machinery which is known as the circular knitting machine, and
the object of the Invention is to produce in such machines fabrics with longi-
tudinal stripes or patterns of various colors or different kinds of work. In
ordinary circular knitting machines, wheels provided with teeth composed of
thin blades are used for the purpose of carrying down the threads under the
beards of the needles to form the loops. The formation of longitudinal stripes
on the fabric is effected by the employment of threads of different colors, and
dividing the needles into two or any desired number of sets, each set being
made to operate upon its particular thread, from which such needles will form
loops or work; this object is effected by the employment of wheels con-
structed in such a manner as to admit of them acting alternately as sinkers and
[Poice 8d 1

page_text: pressers. To this end certain of the notches of these wheels are filled, so that
when the needles are brought round against these portions of the wheels,
their beards will be closed by the filling pieces pressing against them, and the
threads will thereby be prevented from entering under the beards of the
needles; but when the open parts of the wheels come round the teeth of
the wheels will carry down the threads, and pass them under the beards of
the needles so as to form loops. These pressing and sinking wheels may be
so arranged that the filling pieces of one wheel will act against certain of the
needles, while the filling pieces of the other wheel will act against other
needles.
It will be obvious, that by employing threads of different colors, and
altering the position and arrangement of the filling pieces of the pressing
wheels, whereby the beards of the needles are closed, and employing two or
more pressing and sinking wheels, and also altering or modifying the tension
on the threads, a variety of patterns may be produced on the fabric.
bination of large and small pressing and sinking wheels may also be employed,
and in order to be enabled to produce a variety of patterns on the same
machine, the wheels, or some of them, must be capable of being thrown in and
out of gear with facility, so as to be made to act or not act on the beards of
the needles, as may be required.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Archibald Turner in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
9th May 1862.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ARCHIBALD
TURNER, of Leicester, Elastic Wed Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fifth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Archibald Turner, Her special license that I, the said Archibald
Turner, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the
said Archibald Turner, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVE

page_text: MENTS IN KNITTING MACHINERY," upon the condition (amongst others) that I,
the said Archibald Turner, by an instrument in writing under my hand and
seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Archibald Turner, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the
letters and figures marked thereon (that is to say):-
My Invention of "Improvements in Knitting Machinery relates to that
description of machinery which is known as the circular knitting machine,
and the object of the Invention is to produce in such machines fabrics with
longitudinal stripes or patterns of various colours or different kinds of work.
In ordinary circular knitting machines, wheels provided with teeth composed
of thin blades are used for the purpose of carrying up the threads under the
beards of the needles to form the loops. The formation of longitudinal
stripes on the fabric produced in machines of this description is effected,
according to my Invention, by the employment of threads of different colours,
and dividing the needles into two or any desired number of sets, each set being
made to operate upon its particular thread, from which such needles will form
loops or work, the operations of the sets of needles being so arranged and
combined that they shall produce a single but party-coloured fabric. This
object is effected by the employment of wheels having teeth or notches con-
structed in such a manner as to admit of these teeth acting alternately as
sinkers and pressers. To this end certain of the notches or teeth of these
wheels are filled, so that when the needles are brought round against these
portions of the wheels, their beards will be closed by the filling pieces of the
wheels pressing against them, and the threads will thereby be prevented from
entering under the beards of the needles; but when the open parts of the
wheels come round, the teeth of the wheels will carry the threads betwcenand
pass them under the beards of the needles so as to form loops. These pressing
and sinking wheels are so arranged that the filling pieces of one wheel will
act against certain of the needles, while the filling pieces of the other wheel
will act against other needles, so as to produce various kinds of patterns; but
all are so combined and arranged as to form a single fabric, and not a double
or compound fabric, as has sometimes been done in machines of this class.
In the accompanying Drawings, Fig. 1 shews in plan or side view a loop

page_text: wheel, with filling pieces a¹, so arranged in sets of two between certain of the
notches or teeth, that when the wheels are mounted upon an ordinary circular
knitting machine, and caused to act upon a circular ring of needles in a
manner well understood (and shewn in plan view at Fig. 2), they will lay
the thread in a proper manner on the needles, that is, they will form loops,
and carry such loops alternately under and over the beards of the ring of
needles in a manner presently to be explained. By filling up two, three, or
more of the teeth of the wheels, sets of two, three, or more of the needles
will be acted upon according to the desired width of the stripes and the
number of filling pieces in the loop wheel.
As the needles pass under those notches in the loop wheel (see Fig. 1)
which contain the filling pieces a', a¹, the thread or loops will be laid over or
ou the beard of the needle, as will be seen in the detached sectional view,
Fig. 3, which shews that the filling piece a' has depressed the beard into the
eye of the needle, and therefore the newly laid thread will not form a loop,
but will merely be laid upon the beard of the needle.
As the needle passes
under those notches of the loop wheel which do not contain filling pieces, the
loops will be formed, and as the beards will not be closed, the newly-formed
loop will be left by the loop wheel under the beard, as in ordinary knitting,
and as shewn in the detached sectional view, Fig. 4.
In forming looped fabrics with longitudinal stripes of equal width, say, of
two needles or loops, I employ two looped presser wheels precisely similar to
the one above described, and I cause them to act upon a ring of needles, as
shewn at Fig. 2. Each loop presser wheel is supplied with different colored
thread, as shewn in Fig. 2. The looped presser wheel A, having the black
thread supplied to it (on motion being given to the ring of needles in the
ordinary manner in the direction of the arrow), will form loops, and leave
them under and over the beards of the ring of needles C in sets of two, as
shown at Fig. 5, which is a front view of a portion of the ring of needles C,
after having passed the looped presser wheel A. The continued motion of the
machine will bring the same needles up to and pass them under the second
looped presser wheel B, which is exactly like the looped wheel A, but has a
red thread supplied to it, and is so placed upon the ring of needles, that those
notches in it which do not contain filling pieces will leave loops under the
beards of those needles upon which the filling pieces of the former looped
presser wheel A were caused to act, and did consequently prevent the needles
from receiving loops.
A portion of the needles, after pasing under theloop pressing wheels B, are
shewn in front view at Fig. 6, from which it will be seen that the two sets of

page_text: needles, marked 2 and 4, have received loops of red colored thread under their
beards by the operation of the looped presser wheel B, the two sets of needles
marked 1 and 3, Fig. 5, having received loops of black thread under their
beards by the operation of the looped presser wheel A. The needles now
holding severally a new loop, but in sets of two, alternately red and black,
have the appearance shewn at Fig. 7, that is, there will be alternately two red
and two black loops formed on the needles. These loops and needles being
carried round, and submitted to the operation of the ordinary pressing and
knocking over wheels (or other equivalent apparatus used in circular knitting
machinery), will be knitted, and those threads or loops which were left upon
the beards will be thrown in the form of a floating thread at the back of the
fabric by the pressing operation just described. The repetition of each com-
plete revolution of the ring of needles will produce a longitudinal striped fabric
with stripes of equal width, as shewn in the Diagram, Fig. 8.
In Fig. 9 I have shewn in back view, on a greatly enlarged scale, a portion
of a knitted fabric, made with longitudinal stripes of three needles in width.
From this Figure the alternately kuitted loop and floating threads which have
been by the operation of the looped presser wheels laid under and over the
beards of the needles will be distinctly seen. The stripes may be made of any
desired width by increasing or diminishing the number of filling pieces in each
of the looped presser wheels A and B employed. In order that the sets of
needles appropriated to each color may at each successive revolution of the
machine be submitted to the action of the filled and empty notches of the
looped presser wheel in their proper order, it is necessary that the ring of
needles shall consist of such a number of needles as shall be a multiple of the
number of sets of filling pieces or empty spaces in the looped pressing wheel.
The stripes may be caused to take a helical or diagonal direction in the
fabric by giving to the ring of needles a number less than a multiple of
the number of sets of filled or empty spaces in the looped presser wheel.
Fig. 10 is a back view on an enlarged scale of such a fabric, in which it will
be seen that at each course or revolution of the ring of needles the stripe has
failed to reach the same vertical line by one loop from the above-described
cause, as will be seen in the Diagram, Fig. 8. It will be obvious that by
employingthreadsof differentcoloursandaltering the position andarrangement
of the filling pieces of the pressing wheels whereby the beards of the needles
are closed, and employing two or more pressing or sinking wheels, and also
altering or modifying the tension on the threads, a variety of patterus may be
produced on the fabric. A combination of large and small pressing and
sinking wheels may also be employed; and in order to be enabled to produce a

page_text: upon
variety of patterns on the same machine, these wheels, or some of them, must
be capable of being thrown in and out of gear with facility, so as to be made
to act or not act on the beards of the needles, as may be required. In
Fig. 11 I have shewn in plan view part of a machine in which there is a com-
bination of small sinking and pressing loop wheels, by which I am enabled to
produce a pattern in two colours similar to that shewn in the Diagram, Fig. 12.
To effect this object I employ three looped pressing wheels for each color, the
looped pressing wheels A, B, and C, Fig. 11, being supplied with black thread
and the other wheels D, E, and F, with red. All those pressing wheels are
mounted horizontal forked rods a, which slide in sockets 6 carried upon
a ring of metal c, firmly fixed to the framing of the machine. To the ends a*
of the forked rods a is jointed one end of a bell-crank lever d, which turns
upon a fulcrum pin at e, its opposite end being in communication with a
jacquard apparatus or a tappet motion, by which it may be thrown in or drawn
out of action at the proper moment. The looped pressing wheels B and Eare
shewn as laying in the loops upon a ring of vertical needles G, the looped
pressing wheel B, supplied with black colored thread, having one of its notches
filled and five empty, so that it will lay five loops under the beards of the
needles, and then one over. The looped pressing wheel E, with the red
colored thread, is constructed in such a manner with its filled notches as that
it will lay the loops under one needle beard, and then over five. When one
course or revolution of the ring of needles has been completed, the wheels B
and E are withdrawn by means of the jacquard apparatus or tappet wheel
arrangement, and the looped pressing wheels A and F are thrown into action,
and will commence laying in a course of loops alternately over and under the
beards of the needles in sets of three needles. It will be seen from Fig. 12
that the pattern requires three black and then three red loops. These wheels A
and F are in their turn withdrawn, and the looped pressing wheels C and D
are brought into action; C will lay the black thread under one needle beard
and over five other needles, and the wheel D will lay its thread under five
needle beards and over one, and so on throughout that course or revolution of
the ring of needles. All these new loops will, during the revolution of the
machine, be carried under the pressing apparatus, the position of which is
indicated by the red lines at H, and will be knitted on to the previously
formed course of loops, as will be well understood by practical workmen.
For some description of patterns similararrangements of filling pieces herein
shewn as distributed over several small looped pressing wheels may be
arranged advantageously upon two wheels of larger diameter, and the same
result may be obtained.

page_text: Having now described my Invention ofimprovements in knitting machinery,
and having explained the manner of carrying the same into effect, I claim as
the Invention secured to me by Letters Patent as aforesaid, the employment
in the manufacture of looped fabrics of two or more pressing wheels having
certain of their teeth or notches filled or stopped up and so arranged aud
combined that the single fabric produced is made partly by one wheel and
partly by the other, for the purpose of forming longitudinal or diagonal stripes
or helical coils or patterns in knitted fabrics, as herein set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Archibald Turner, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.
A. TURNER. (L.S.)