AN IMPROVEMENT APPLICABLE TO CREELS OR BOBBIN CARRIERS USED IN WARPING, SPINNING, TWISTING, AND OTHER OPERA- TIONS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Clayton Mewburn at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 24th October 1879. A communication
from abroad by Edmond Sée, of Lille, France.
JOHN CLAYTON MEWBURN, of 169, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agent. and Consulting Engineer. "AN IMPROVEMENT APPLICABLE TO CREELS OR
BOBBIN CARRIERS USED IN WARPING, SPINNING, TWISTING, AND OTHER OPERA-
TIONS." [A communication from abroad by Edmond Sée, of Lille, France.]
In the creels or bobbin carriers hitherto employed in the operations of warping,
dressing, sizing, spinning, twisting, and doubling of threads or yarns when a bobbin
becomes empty, a longer or shorter time is necessary to replace it with a full one;
these stoppages cause in some cases a loss of 80 per cent. in the production. For
example, in warping machines the creel or carrier holds on the average about
600 bobbins; each bobbin contains about 2,200 yards, and the warp frame moves at
the rate of about 50 yards per minute. The result is that a bobbin is emptied in
about 44 minutes. Supposing a stoppage of half a minute is required to replace the
empty bobbin by a full one; the result is that for,
effective work there are stoppages amounting to three quarters of an hour's
(600 x 0.50) = 300 minutes or
5 hours. The practical production of a warp frame is therefore only about 15 per
cent.
When in dressing or sizing machines the thread comes directly from a creel or
carrier fitted with bobbins the inconvenience is still greater, and is only in a certain
measure reduced by great care and hand work without obtaining a satisfactory
result. In twisting, spinning, doubling, and polishing machines, and generally in
all machines in which the thread unwinds from a creel or carrier of bobbins or
cops, the same loss of production occurs in greater or less proportions.
Now the object of the present Invention is to overcome the objection hereinbefore
explained and to allow of a continuous unwinding of the threads.
For this purpose I construct a creel or carrier capable of holding a double set of
bobbins or pirns which will give off their thread or yarn without turning, like the
bobbins of cylindro-conical, or trunco-conical, or other form. Each pair of bobbins,
that is to say, the two corresponding bobbins of the two sets are placed on spindles
or pins which are carried by a bar; the axes of the two bobbins converge towards
a thread guide above. While the thread is unwinding from the upper end of the

page_text: one bobbin the attendant attaches by a knot the last end of the thread of this
bobbin to the first end of the thread of the other bobbin, so that when the one
bobbin is quite empty the thread of the other bobbin will follow on without inter-
ruption; then while this other bobbin is unwinding in its turn the attendant
replaces the first bobbin by a fresh full one, the thread of which is in like manner
attached to the thread of the bobbin which is then in course of being unwound,
and so on continuously.
It will thus be seen that the creel or carrier supplies thread without interruption
or stoppage. The last end of the thread is easily found; it suffices, for example, to
break one of the last turns at the bottom of the bobbin and to unwind it a little so
as to get a sufficient length to allow of the attachment to the thread of the other
bobbin which has to follow it. Or the tube, when there is one, may be withdrawn
so as to pull out at the bottom the last layer of thread. Or, in spinning, the
spinning machine may be allowed to deposit an end of thread at the beginning
of the pirn, or a few turns of thread may be wound on the spindle a little lower
than the bottom of the pirn.
In addition to obtaining uninterrupted work of the creel or bobbin carrier, this
Invention diminishes breakages arising from the numerous stoppages and restartings
as in the old method; it produces more complete uniformity of tension by the
diminution of the stoppages; it reduces the number of machines necessary for a
given production; and it economizes hand labor and motive power.