IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS OF APPARATUS EMPLOYED IN PRODUCING FANCY OR FIGURE WEAVINGS
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edwin Heywood and Edward
Hinchcliffe at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 9th February 1867.
We, EDWIN HEYWOOD, of Sackville Street, in the City of Manchester, Stuff
Finisher, and EDWARD HINCHCLIFFE, of 26, York Street, in the said City of
Manchester, Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS OF APPARATUS EMPLOYED IN PRODUCING FANCY OR
FIGURE WEAVINGS," to be as follows:-
In the production of fancy or figure weavings considerable difficulty is
experienced, when producing ornamental effects by the use of extra weft, in
introducing any great variety and change of color to the ornamental parts,
and in bringing the various pattern portions very close to each other.
In carrying out our improvements we apply the pattern weft on very small
bobbins, each of which is supported separately upon a pin with a spring to
retain and produce surface friction to the bobbin to prevent it from too freely
coming off or unwinding; each of these pins is affixed to a separate small
plate or carrier which in use is held on the face of a narrow plate, so that it
may with its bobbin in working be readily shifted from one of these narrow
plates to another or others. For this purpose each bobbin carrier is formed
with a fin or projection to pass into a groove in the face of the narrow plates

page_text: and to be held there by spring clips, or the plates carrying the carriers for the
bobbins may be otherwise held in the narrow plates. These narrow plates
may be of about the width of a bobbin carrier, or they may be narrower, so
that each bobbin carrier may be supported on two or more of them at any
one time. The narrow plates are attached separately to a supporting bar so
as to give facility for the correct adjustment of them in relation to each other
and for changes of pattern, and also for replacement in case of breakage or
injury to any of them; this supporting bar is capable of endway as well as
up-and-down motion on guides carried by the batten. The lower ends of
these narrow plates are V-shaped or pointed in order that the warps selected
to have weft laid under them at any one time, though occupying at the
time of selection spaces wider than those between adjoining narrow plates
with their bobbins and their carriers, may be drawn together or clustered
as the bar carrying these narrow plates descends to meet such selected warps,
by which facility is obtained for a very large amount of ornamental surface in
any given space. To facilitate nicety of horizontal adjustment to the bar
carrying the series of narrow plates this bar is capable of sliding in its up-and-
down motion by slot or groove on another bar with teeth to receive a worm
plate, by turning which this tooth bar may be slided for the desired adjustment,
and by the groove or slot acting upon a stud or projection effecting the desired
sideway motion of the bar carrying the series of bobbins; this may be also
employed in shifting the bar so as to substitute another bobbin with a different
color or character of weft for that or those which have been used in a par-
ticular locality. The narrow plates are arranged all across the reed with
spaces between them only sufficient to admit of the clustering therein of the
selected warp threads. The bobbins are set in motion by separate levers
connected to a bar, by which they are, all actuated simultaneously in either
direction. In working all warps capable of being selected for these figuring
wefts may be selected at every selection whether figuring weft is to be thrown
into them for the time or not. The selection of the particular weft to. be
thrown in at each time is effected by the operator drawing the ends of such
weft from their bobbin to the fabric, and when such wefts are to cease he.clips
them from between that in the work and the bobbin and makes a fresh
selection for the next change. When the figure or portion of figure to be
produced at any one time is so wide that the narrow plates must necessarily
be so wide apart that the bobbins would be unsupported in passing from one
to the next of them we then apply another or other similarly arranged inter-
mediate plates, but only sufficiently broad to support the bobbin plates in their
transit. The forming the openings to receive the selected warps with. inclined

page_text: sides adapted to cluster together such warps for the laying under of the
figuring weft and the application of a pointed intermediate support to the weft
carriers are applicable when using the ordinary swivels, or ribbon shuttles, or
other weft supporters than those above described, and in the production of
broad or narrow fabrics.