IMPROVEMENTS IN KNITTED FABRICS, AND IN MACHINERY FOR PRODUCING THE SAME.
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 4th October 1876. A. communication from
abroad by Charles Henry Landerberger, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United
States of America.
"
JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman. IMPROVEMENTS IN KNITTED FABRICS, AND IN MACHINERY FOR
PRODUCING THE SAME.' A communication from abroad by Charles Henry
Landerberger, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
"
This Invention consists of a tubular fabric in the production of which several
threads are used in conjunction with a rotary knitting machine, the loops of each
thread pursuing either a regular or irregular zig-zag course instead of the usual
direct circular course, so that a tubular fabric with patterns of more than ordinary
complex character may be produced.
The Invention further consists of mechanism, described hereafter, for producing
the new fabric.
In carrying out the Invention a hollow cylinder is employed which is caused to
revolve in suitable bearings and carries a series of guided latch needles as in
ordinary circular knitting machines. The rotation of the cylinder however is not
continuous as usual but intermittent, each movement being such that the circle of
needles will be moved to the extent of the distance between two adjoining needles.
The needles are provided with the usual bits which rest on pins attached to a ring,
the latter surrounding the bearing of the needle cylinder, and being guided by the
frame of the machine or otherwise. The needles are raised by the pins on this ring,
to which an intermittent vertical movement is imparted by any suitable mechanism,
and the needles may be depressed by a ring connected by rods to the first-mentioned
ring, the ring secondly mentioned acting upon the upper ends of the bits of the
needles.
A series of vertical thread guides which it is preferred to make tubular are
arranged in a circle and have their bearings in the cross bar of the frame, each tube
having a pinion, and the pinions of the whole of the tubes being driven by a central
wheel. There are as many tubes as there are pins on the ring, and each tube is
directly above and in line with one of the said pins. The threads pass through the
tubes and through eyes in the lower end of the same, and thence to the fabric

page_text: which passes through the interior of the cylinder. The number of pins and tubes
will be governed by the number of needles which have to be operated in the series
at each lift of the ring; thus, if there be one hundred needles and every fifth
needle has to be operated by each upward movement of the said ring there must be
twenty equidistant pins and as many tubes.
The machine operates in the following manner :-During the upward movement
of the ring first mentioned its pins raise every fifth needle of the series on the
cylinder, the upper ends of the elevated needles passing into the tubes. The tubular
thread guides are now turned to the extent of one revolution, their threads being
thereby wrapped round the needles, after which the latter descend and add their
loops to those of the fabric in the usual manner. The cylinder is now turned to
the extent of the distance between two adjoining needles, so that on the next
upward movement of the ring the needles adjoining those first operated on will be
raised, the threads wrapped round them, and on the descent of the needles their
loops will be added to the fabric.
The fabrics produced by ordinary circular knitting machine are restricted as
regards the variety of their patterns, stripes produced by different colored threads
being the prevailing features of all the patterns. By a machine constructed and
operating in the manner herein-before described however a circular fabric with
more elaborate patterns may be produced. For example, let it be assumed that
there are one hundred needles, twenty tubes, and twenty pins, and that the colors
in the tubes alternate, one tube having a black thread, and the next tube a white
thread, and so on throughout. If when the needle cylinder has made five of the
above described intermittent movements in one direction it be caused to make five
similar movements in the opposite direction, and so on, the result will be a circular
fabric with alternate black and white longitudinal stripes. If after continuing this
operation throughout a determinate length of the fabric ten intermittent move-
ments in one direction be imparted to the cylinder instead of five as before, and
then the above operation be repeated, a white stripe will form a continuation of the
black stripe, and a black stripe a continuation of the white stripe, and by repeating
these changes a plaid pattern will be produced. The cylinder may however have,
say, three movements in one direction and then, say, eight movements in the
opposite direction imparted to it, when the pattern will be changed from a black
and white plaid to an entirely different pattern.
By varying the movements of the cylinder, and by using threads of many
different colors, the most elaborate patterns may be produced.
The movements of the cylinder may be controlled by a pattern chain through the
intervention of suitable mechanism which will readily suggest itself to those skilled
in the art.