THE APPLICATION OF IMPROVED APPARATUS TO KNITTING LOOMS
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by François Antoine Renault at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 27th
April 1866.
I, FRANÇOIS ANTOINE RENAULT, of Falaise, Department of Calvados.
Empire of France, Mechanician, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "THE APPLICATION OF IMPROVED APPARATUS TO KNITTING LOOMS,"
to be as follows:-
I do not propose to make any alteration in the actual mechanism of the
ordinary circular loom, but I simply add to this loom an apparatus which may
be applied to every sort of circular knitting loom. This apparatus is intended
to feed circular looms generally with threads, and thereby permit these looms
to be worked mechanically by any motor. The apparatus in question, which
I term a parallel transmitting winder, and to which I add a self-acting check
or meter, is composed :—
1. Of a compensating creel ("cannelet") with moveable slides, the
functions of which are to bring into the winding the threads intended to form
the net and to regulate the transmission of these threads according to the
different sorts of fabric. The compensator, the length of which varies with
the number of falls in the loom to be fed gears with moveable grooved wheels
which wind and transmit the threads, and it is this piece which turning on

page_text: itself drives these wheels which have a boss or socket and are set on horizonta
spindles fixed on the movable slides which are mounted in grooved support
where they may be moved up and down at will for the replacing of the thread
when they have failed in the work. At the lower part of the grooved support is
placed an adjusting screw which serves to put the wheels supported on the
moveable slides in gear or out of gear with the compensator. The com
pensator receives its motion by means of two bevel wheels from the main
driving shaft.
2. Of a rack detent, a piece generally known under the name of a
dynamometer, the object of which is to stop the loom directly a thread is
broken. As in the ordinary methods the rack is here held horizontally on
the thread carrier or back roller support by the presence of the thread; in
this position the two escapement pallets are one above the other below. If
the thread fails by reason of an accident either to the bobbin or to the hank
the equilibrium is broken, and the top pallet places itself in the teeth of an
escapement wheel mounted on the compensator, while the other pallet places
itself in juxtaposition beneath one of the arms of a disengaging pedal herein-
after mentioned; the escapement wheel bearing on the upper pallet the other
pallet uplifts at the same time one of the arms of the disengaging pelal and
stops the loom. By causing the detent to turn on itself it is ready to be
again placed on the thread when this latter has been first replaced on the
thread carrier or back roller. The disengaging pedal consists of an axle
varying in length with the number of falls which the loom contains, and placed
parallelly in the line of the detents and of the compensator. It is furnished
on one side with arms or pallets, the number of which varies with the number
of detents. This pedal turns on itself, its arms or pallets are kept in a
horizontal line by means of a spring which replaces them always in this
position every time that they have been displaced either by the balance or by
the escapement pallets of the detent. The same pedal is furnished at its
extremity with an escapement, which corresponds with another escapement
placed at the lower part of the column of the disengagement. These two
united escapements form the arrangement which I term the disengagement.
The disengagement column is set vertically on a socket, which allows this
column a vertical movement; it is by its ascending movement regulated by a
spiral spring enclosed in the socket piece, that the throwing out of gear or
stoppage of the loom takes place. Thus, if the thread happens to break, the
loom continuing to work the compensator will bring on what remains of the
thread from its rupture to the detent, the end of the thread once passed under
this detent, this latter being no longer upheld by the thread turns over its

page_text: escapement, sets the disengaging pedal in motion, and the stoppage of the
loom takes place immediately and before any defect can have been produced
in the fabric. When the thread is replaced it is only necessary to tread on
the gearing or re-engaging lever and the throwing into gear is at once
effected. The automaton, or self-acting check or meter, causes the loom to
stop of itself at any length of fabric, which is very useful when it is desired
to introduce into the fabric any sort of pattern or threads of another colour.
In a piece placed on the support of my apparatus passes the stem of an end-
less screw, and at the bottom of this stem is placed an escapement wheel set
in motion by a double spur mounted on the shaft of the motor of the loom.
The endless screw set in motion by the escapement wheel gears into the teeth
of a ratchet wheel dial, around which is engraved in figures a numerical scale
which serves by means of an indicator to give all the general lengths of
fabrics. On the ratchet dial is placed a spur which serves to raise a lever
corresponding with one of the arms of a balance provided with two arms,
which are horizontal when the balance is in equilibrium; to one of these arms
is suspended a stirrup or hook in connection with the disengaging pedal, and
the opposite arm is furnished with a hammer intended to strike on a double
balance, which set, the clockwork in motion. Thus to obtain such length of
fabric as may be desired the workman has but to count the requisite number
of teeth at the ratchet wheel dial and to place the index on the cipher cor-
responding with this number, then at the moment that the desired length of
fabric will have been obtained the spur of the ratchet dial by lifting the lever
in connection with the balance immediately causes this latter to lose its
equilibrium, and that arm of the balance to which the stirrup is suspended
lifts the disengaging pedal and throws the loom out of gear, while at the same
time the other arm of the same balance strikes by means of its hammer the
balance of the clockwork and announces to the workman that the point is
attained.