IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF LOOPED FABRICS
Year: 1859

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Clarke and Joseph Gee
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition,
on the 4th November 1859.
We, WILLIAM CLARKE, of Nottingham, Manufacturer, and JOSEPH GEE,
of Lenton, in the County of Nottingham, Mechanic, do hereby declare the
nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF LOOPED
FABRICS," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists of a new combination or arrangement of mecha-
nism for producing looped fabrics, the object being to obtain a more simple
form of machine capable of working with increased speed. The needles of
the machine are independant needles, each having a slide to work in guides
or combs. The sinkers for forming the loops are also independant, and work
in guides or combs, and they are acted upon by means of double inclines.
These double inclines and the inclines for moving the needles to and fro, as
well as the thread carriers, are fixed to and are carried by one slide or car-
riage, which slides from right to left and from left to right on a fixed bar.
Motion is given thereto by means of a lever from a crank or by a cam, as is
usual in framework knitting machines. In order to allow of the thread
carriers in returning to form a fresh course, they are each mounted on a short
bar carried by the slide or carriage, on which they can slide a suitable
distance to allow the slide or carriage with the inclines to pass it, after the
progress of the thread carriers has been arrested by their coming in contact
with stops one at either end of every width of fabric. These stops, although

page_text: fixed during the working of the machine, are made capable of adjustment for
narrowing or widening, or otherwise. The presser is stationary, and is either
formed of a bar cut out suitably to allow for the movement up and down of
the sinkers, or it may be formed by a number of blades or pieces attached to a
fixed bar by leads or otherwise. The knocking over of the work is effected by
means of a bar, having spaces cut out for the passage of the needles (or steel
bits may be let in in lieu thereof) against which the work comes when the
needles retire, and so leaves only the last formed loops upon the needles in the
usual manner. In order to form a welt, the double incline which works
the sinkers is made capable of being lowered by guage screws applied for this
purpose, by which the sinkers may be caused to descend a greater depth so as
to form loops sufficiently long to turn a welt, as in the ordinary stocking
frame. When it is desired to produce "plated goods" in the machines,
sinkers of somewhat different form will have to be used to those used when
making plain work, and then also thread carriers capable of laying in two or
more threads will have to be placed, the one thread being of silk and the
other of cotton, or of any other different classes of materials, so as to produce
the face of the fabric of the one material and the back of it of the other
material, as is well understood. In this arrangement of machine narrowing
and widening may be carried on with the same facility and no more delicacy
than in the machines of the ordinary construction, the workman having
simply to remove the required number of loops from the outside needles on to
the same number of the adjoining ones, and pushing back those from which
the loops have been taken, as is well understood.