CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ORNAMENTED NET OR LACE
Year: 1843

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, JOHN
HEATHCOAT and AMBROSE BREWIN, of Tiverton, in the County of Devon, Lace
Manufacturers, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent, Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-eight day of February, in the sixth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said
John Heathcoat and Ambrose Brewin, Her especial license, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that we, the said John Heathcoat and Ambrose
Brewin, our exors, adññors, and assigns, or such others as we, the said John
Heathcoat and Ambrose. Brewin, our exors, admors, or assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the
term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend; within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our
Invention of CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ORNAMENTED NET
OR LACE;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that we, the
said John Heathcoat and Ambrose Brewin, or one of us, shall cause a par-
ticular description of the nature of our said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in. Her said Majesty's High Court
of Chancery, within six calendar. months next and immediately after the date
of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference
being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
John Heathcote and Ambrose Brewin, do hereby declare that the nature of
our said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are
fully described and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof,
reference being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the figures and
letters marked thereon, that is to say:-
The first part of the Invention proposed to be secured under the present
Patent is for a new and better method of intercepting the warp threads,
whereby the application of the jacquard apparatus is much facilitated and
rendered more secure. It consists in making the combs or bolts the means of
supporting and conducting the interceptor or selectors, as will be better
understood by shewing one application of the same, as seen in section at
Figure 1. A is the comb bar (or might be the bolt bar) upon which the
combs are mounted, as usual, in leads. One side of each comb is grooved, so
as to receive the dovetailed slide or junior B; the end of this slide or junior
next the warp threads has a thin slip of iron attached to and fair with its side,
from the foot of which a pointed wire C projects. When the slide or junior
therefore is urged forward (as hereafter explained) the pointed wire intercepts
or prevents the warp threads, against which it is made to impinge, from
shogging, whilst those slides which remain inactive exercise no such interference,
and the warp threads are carried laterally by the action of the guide bars when
shogged by the rack. The following has been found a convenient way of
obtaining the selection and movement of these slides or juniors. Thin plates
or jacks D, D, are connected at one end with the slides, (either by joints or
hooked together, as shewn at Figure 2,) and are kept properly apart at the
other end by a slay or guide bar E, through the divisions of which the jacks
are capable of sliding; this they do whenever they are elevated by the action of
the jacquard apparatus, so as to be freed from the stop_bar F and brought into
the blade of the locker bar H, to which movement is given by a cam in the
ordinary way. The lifter wires K, K, K, K, which are acted on by the cards
upon the jacquard cylinder I, are preserved in their perpendicular position by the
guide bars L and M (the former being shewn separately in Figure 3) and the
stop bar N. It will be seen that when a blank in the card comes against the
foot of a lifter wire it will be raised as the jacquard cylinder ascends, and by
its upper surface will elevate the jack, which rests upon it, and thus place it
under the action of the locker; on the other hand, when the holes in the
cards are brought against the lifter wires they are left in a state of inaction.
The elevated jacks being operated upon by the movement of the locker, cause
the juniors with their pointed wires to advance into the warp threads and

page_text: prevent their being shogged, whilst the inactive jacks leave the warp threads
opposite to them at liberty to be moved or shogged by the action of the rack
upon the guide bars. The chief distinction between this plan and those already
in use consists in the action of the interceptors being through the bolts or
combs, whereby the incumbrance of the jacks or other implements of inter-
ception underneath the combs or bolts is avoided, and the object attained with
much greater safety.
The second part of the Invention proposed to be secured under the present
Patent consists in the production of net with longitudinal stripes (wider or
narrower, as may be required,) of opaque or cloth work of an almost non-elastic
nature, and on that account available for various purposes which a more elastic
article would not suit. This part of the Invention may be performed in any
suitable bobbin-net machinery by adding extra guide bars and causing the
point bars to take up the work more frequently. If a kind of ribbed work,
having every other perpendicular row of meshes closed and the rest of the
ordinary mesh, three extra guide bars are sufficient, if the rack be so cut as
to fasten or weave in each of three extra sets of warp threads separately by the
brasses during their ordinary movements for the production of common net;
but if stripes of cloth of any greater width than a single mesh are required
six extra bars will be necessary, videlicet, three for each of the two upright
rows of meshes. As this is the form of article more likely to be wanted, and
the ribbed or single rowed net can be produced by leaving three of the six
extra bars empty, it is thought best to give a Diagram of the rack and point
movements for producing the wider stripes. Figure 4 shews such Diagram of
the working of the guide bars in making bobbin net or twist lace with several
inlaid threads, side by side, producing stripes. With these racking movements
the width of the stripes can be varied at pleasure by threading up a sufficient
number of clothing threads where the article is required to be opaque. In
order to shew more clearly the kind of fabric thus produced one variety of it is
shewn at Figure 5 on an enlarged scale.
The third part of our Invention consists of combining ornamental printing
with lace or net thickened or matted at those parts where it is desired that the
printed pattern or design shall appear more distinct, by which means a very
beautiful and new manufacture of printed fabrics may be obtained. And in
carrying out this part of our Invention, in place of printing lace net not
thickened (as heretofore practised, and whereby very little effect of the printing
can be obtained), we cause the lace or net in its manufacture to have extra
threads laid into the meshes so as more or less to fill them up, the effect of
which will be that the colors printed on such thickened parts will be more distinct,

page_text: whilst those parts of the colors which come on the lace portion of the fabric
will be less distinct. In printing lace fabrics, thickened for the purpose, we
employ blocks, plates, or cylinders, in the usual manner of printing muslin and
other fabrics. And we make no claim to printing by such means when
separately considered, nor do we claim the printing of Hace generally, but only
when printing is combined with lace or net thickened by means of extra
.threads laid or linked into the meshes, so as to fill or partly to fill them up or
thicken the lace fabrics at those parts.
It should be remarked that neither of the foregoing parts of the Invention
is confined to the precise details shewn, so long as the peculiarity of the mode
of working constituting either part of the Invention be retained; and in respect
of the second- part of the Invention, the ground of the net may be varied, if
desired, varying the cut of wheels and pattern-surfaces accordingly.
"
In witness, whereof, I, the said Ambrose Brewin, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of August, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-three.