IMPROVE- MENTS IN WEAVING AND IN THE APPARATUS USED FOR THAT PURPOSE
Year: 1860

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by David Selkirk Miller, at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 30th
October 1860.
I, DAVID SELKIRK MILLER, sometime Power Loom Weaver, & presently
residing at Fifty-one Marlborough Street, Calton, Glasgow, in the County
of Lanark, do hereby declare the nature of said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN WEAVING AND IN THE APPARATUS USED FOR THAT PURPOSE," to be
as follows:-
My Invention is that of a self-acting apparatus for stopping a power loom
whenever two or more of the threads of the warp are prevented by any cause
from shedding properly, and it consists in certain additional parts and con-
trivances combined with the ordinary mechanism whereby a power loom is
thrown out of gearing.
The ordinary mechanism referred to consists mainly of the following parts:-
A pair of equal pulleys placed side by side, and called respectively the fast
or live pulley, and the loose or dead pulley, the former of which is fixed on the
crank shaft of the loom, while the latter turns loosely about the same shaft ;
a belt whereby either of those pulleys is driven; the fast pulley when the
loom is to work, and the loose pulley when it is to stop; a fork by which the
belt is guided so as to act on the one or the other pulley; a handle by which
the fork can be shifted from side to side so as to throw the loom into or out
of gearing; this handle is so acted on by a weight or by a spring that it

page_text: throws the loom out of gearing of itself except when held in the position for
keeping the loom in gearing by being placed in a notch in the framing, and
a lever or a combination of levers, by pressing which the handle can at any
time be pushed out of the notch so as immediately to stop the loom. This
last part of the mechanism I shall call "the disengaging lever" whether it
consists of one lever or of a combination of levers.
The following are the additional parts & contrivances already referred
to-On the upper side of the shuttle I make a slight hollow, and on the
lower side a similar slight hollow, and in each of those hollows I place a spring
or a lever. When the warp sheds properly these springs or levers are not
acted on by the threads, but should two or more of the threads of the warp
become so entangled from any cause as not to shed, those threads remain in
the middle between the upper and lower sheds of the warp, and the shuttle
passes either below or above them, when the entangled threads press upon
the spring or lever at the upper or lower side of the shuttle, as the case may
be, and in either case the effect is by means of mechanism contained within
the shuttle to push out a stud and make it project from one side of the shuttle;
as the shuttle goes on, that stud strikes against a lever attached to the lathe,
and by moving that lever shifts the position of a pin or other suitable piece
carried by the lathe. The ordinary position of that pin or other piece is such
as not to act on the disengaging lever before mentioned, but when shifted
by the action of the stud as already stated the forward stroke of the lathe
makes the said pin or other piece press against the disengaging lever so as
to throw the loom out of gearing. A little way beyond the lever which is
attached to the lathe is placed a bar fixed to the lathe in such a position as
to press the stud back again into the interior of the shuttle.