IMPROVEMENTS IN LOOMS FOR WEAVING
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Rodney Croskey at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 27th February 1869.
I, JOSEPH RODNEY CROSKEY, of 69, King William Street, in the City
of London, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN LOOMS FOR WEAVING," to be as follows:-
My Invention has reference especially to that description of looms in
which it is intended to drive the shuttle by the force of air set in motion
by the action of the working parts of the loom.
1st. It consists of the construction of a novel apparatus for the
purpose of propelling the air after said apparatus shall have been actuated
by suitable mechanical contrivances.
2ndly. Of the novel means employed by me for arresting the speed of
the shuttle & preventing its recoil after it shall have been driven across
the race.
3rdly. Of the novel combination of motions and the mechanical
arrangements connected therewith which I have invented for the purpose
of actuating an air propelling apparatus.

page_text: 4thly. Of a novel arrangement of well known mechanical parts for
effecting the same object as in the preceding paragraph, when the action
is produced by the combinations of motions heretofore in use.
5thly. The application of the above-mentioned combinations, con-
structions, & arrangements, whether the principle be adopted of driving
the shuttle by air, previously restrained or compressed, or the air be
permitted to have free, open, and unrestrained communication between
the air propelling apparatus and the shuttle box. The shuttle box
will of course be covered at the top and be air-tight, except at the
two ends, and the shuttle will be made to fit closely or nearly so in the
box.
1. Heretofore the apparatus used for propelling the air in looms herein
referred to has consisted principally of a cylinder and piston, a collapsible
or compressible bag, a sliding cap or case, or a bellows, none of which
possess the requisite inherent resilient force to cause them to resume the
original position in which they were before being operated upon, and they
all require the aid of some mechanical contrivance to replace them in
that position. Now I propose to construct an air propelling apparatus
which I make entirely of india-rubber or of india-rubber combined with
such other material as shall not seriously affect its resiliency, and I make
it in the form of a hollow ball or sphere or other modified form, and so
arrange the same that when operated upon by a suitable plunger the
exterior of such ball shall be violently forced into the interior, and after
driving the air out of an aperture in said air propeller into and through
a passage communicating with the shuttle box, the said ball will of
itself recover its original position without the aid of any mechanical
contrivance.
Another mode of constructing a similar air propeller is by making
a flattened sphere or spheroid of the same materials, as above described,
and I place the same between two discs of wood or metal or other
suitable hard substance in one of which discs there is an aperture com-
municating through a passage into the shuttle box; and I so arrange
this propeller that when it shall have been operated upon by suitable
mechanical arrangements, and have driven the air into the shuttle
box or on to the shuttle it will of itself resume its original position.
2. The means heretofore in use for preventing the recoil or rebound
of the shuttle and arresting its speed on arriving into its box have
generally consisted of a strong swell spring or catch, or a pawle and bit, or

page_text: other appliances requiring a mechanical arrangement to release them
before the shuttle can be driven across the race. Now I propose to effect
the same purpose by the use of two or more slight watch springs placed
in the inside of the shuttle box, in such manner as to offer the needful
resistance to the shuttle on its entrance into its box for the prevention
of recoil, and the minimum of resistance on its exit without requiring on
or previous to its exit any contrivance to release such springs or other
appliances I may use in modification or substitution thereof. And I find
much assistance in rendering this method highly efficacious in preventing
recoil by adopting the means for actuating the air propeller as partially
described in the next succeeding paragraph.
3. Heretofore the air propeller has been actuated by the action
produced by a combination of the motions of the 2d motion shaft and
the sley beam of the loom, or clse by other arrangements, but always
with the view of giving an alternate blow or impulse to the air propeller,
first on one side and then on the other side of the loom. Now I
propose
to operate on whatever air propeller I may use by the action derived
from the combination of the rotatory motion of the crank shaft (or 1st
motion shaft) and of the vibratory motion of the sley beam in such
manner that as the pick takes place on one side of the loom, and the
shuttle is driven from that side,, a similar and simultaneous instead of
an alternate impulse is given to the air propeller at the other side of
the loom, and on the shuttle being driven across the race from one box
it will meet on arriving into the other box with a blast or discharge of
air, which will tend greatly to arrest its speed and materially lessen the
necessity of such frictional or other mechanical resistance for preventing
recoil as will require the aid of other mechanical arrangements to
release it.
One method by which I propose to combine the two motions above
referred to is by placing the air propeller on the inner side of the sley.
beam, as proposed in the Provisional Specification of Rowland Gibson
Hazard of the 10th February 1865, and by fixing a cam or cam wiper on
the crank shaft so that on each revolution of said shaft and each down-.
ward beat of the sley beam, the cam will act with great pressure upon
the air propeller or the appliances thereto attached or connected with said
cam at the same time on both sides of the loom and drive the air on to.
the shuttle or into the shuttle box with the requisite force and rapidity.
to drive the shuttle from one side of the loom, whilst on the other side the

page_text: discharged or discharging air will act as a buffer or cushion to arrest the
speed of the shuttle on its arrival at that side.
4. In cases where a greater power or lesser velocity may be required
or where it may otherwise be desirable to operate on the air propeller by
a combination of the motions of the 2d motion shaft and the sley beam,
I propose (in lieu of the mechanical arrangements heretofore in use
when this combination is employed) to operate on the air propeller, if a
hollow ball or sphere, as herein-before referred to, be used by placing a
cam on said 2d motion shaft and using a rocking lever as descibed in
Thomas Lane's Patent of the 25th March 1868, but instead of placing
a cylinder on the top of said lever I fix my air propeller on the inner
side of the sley beam as proposed by Rowland Gibson Hazard in his
provisionally protected Patent of the 10th of February 1865, and I place
at the top of said rocking lever a plunger which plunger (when the cam
above mentioned shall give motion to the said lever) will drive the
exterior of the hollow ball into the interior and produce the desired
effect upon the shuttle; or if I use an air propeller presenting a disc or
other hard substance to be operated upon, then instead of using the
rocking lever above referred to I propose to construct a lever which shall
rock in like manner, but I make it with a joint or split and connect the
same to the air propeller (using the cam in this instance in the same
manner) and I am thereby enabled to maintain a continuous contact
between the said lever so connected, and the cam on the 2d motion
shaft and considerably lessen or altogether avoid the objectionable
concussion consequent upon any other, to me, known
arrangement.
5. The nature of this my Invention is such that the improvements
herein mentioned cannot be applied to looms in which the air is com-
pressed, or intended so to be in accordance with the system patented by
C. W. Harrison on the 18th of Nov 1862, but they are applicable
more or less to all looms where the air is set in motion by the action of
the working parts of the loom whether the object or intention be to
compress or restrain the air before permitting it to act upon the shuttle
as is the case with Charles Richardson's Patent of the 3d February 1868,
or whether the system of unrestrained communication between the air
apparatus and the shuttle box be adopted as proposed in the before-
mentioned provisionally protected Patent of Rowland Gibson Hazard of
the 10th February 1865, and in Henry Lea's subsequent Patent of the
17th February 1866.

page_text: And some of the mechanical arrangements herein partially described
are also applicable to the apparatus proposed to be used by Joseph John
Harrison in his Patent of the 4th Feb 1867, at the outer end of
the shuttle box as well as to any other apparatus placed there or on
other part of the sley beam or elsewhere on the loom.
The nature of my Invention also comprises the application of my
system of arresting the speed of the shuttle and preventing its recoil,
as herein-before partially described when the action on the air propeller
is produced by the combination of the motions of the 2d motion shaft
and the sley beam, and I am enabled to make such application effectual
by so forming the cams employed that they will give either an alternate
or a simultaneous impulse to the air propellers as may be found most
expedient.