IMPROVEMENTS. IN APPARATUS TO BE USED IN JOINING WARP ENDS, WHICH APPARATUS MAY ALSO BE OTHERWISE APPLIED
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Howard Worthington Biggs
at, the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
2nd December 1867.
I, JOHN HOWARD WORTHINGTON BIGGS, of Manchester, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention: for "IMPROVEMENTS. IN APPARATUS TO BE USED
IN JOINING WARP ENDS, WHICH APPARATUS MAY ALSO BE OTHERWISE APPLIED," to
be as follows:
This Invention has for its object improvements in apparatus to be used in
joining warp. ends,, which apparatus may also be otherwise applied.
As the warps usually come from the machine in which they are stiffened
or dressed their ends are held in a comb in which they are spaced with
tolerable but not complete accuracy, and they are at present selected by hand
to be knotted to the ends which are attached to the woven piece..
Now according to my Invention. I employ an apparatus in which the
spacing of the threads can easily be corrected, and in which the threads can
then be shedded, that is to say, every (say) fourth thread raised or separated
from the other threads, so as to be accurately presented for joining, and with
sufficient spaces between them. The old ends are similarly shedded by raising
one of the heddles, so that their ends also are. presented with suitable spaces
between them ready for joining. The joining may be effected either by hand
or machinery. When the threads belonging to one leaf of the heddles are
joined another leaf is raised, and the new ends are again shedded, and so

page_text: another set of ends are properly presented for joining, thus the work goes on
until the ends belonging to the four leaves of heddles are all joined.
The apparatus in its most convenient form consists of a roller with a number
of thin dises upon it with spaces between them corresponding with the gauge
of the warp. Over this roller the new ends held distended in their comb are
laid; in this way the ends are placed in the spaces of the roller with tolerable
accuracy. To correct them a bar is arranged to slide on the frame underneath
the ends and at right angles to them; by a band wheel and screw or similar
contrivance the bar can be rapidly traversed so.as to bring it under the warps
which are in the wrong spaces of the roller, then by means of a hand lever
the bar is caused to rise and take up upon it the threads which stand over it.
The bar then receives a slow traverse equal to one or more spaces of the
roller, and is again allowed to descend, replacing the threads in the roller, but
in different spaces; in this way most of the correction is effected. Corrections
which do not require the shifting of a number of contiguous threads an even
distance are made by hand, but the necessity for such corrections will be
exceptional. The threads being now evenly spaced in the roller, they are
shedded by turning the roller partly round, and this raises every fourth thread,
for in the spaces between the discs on the roller are filling pieces which pro-
ject on one side of the centre, and are so arranged that the nose of every
fourth filling piece will in one position of the roller be raised supporting its
threads, whilst the noses of the other filling pieces are down or at a greater or
less distance from the top of the roller. Again, by turning the roller partly
round the noses of other filling pieces are brought up producing another shed,
the threads of the first shed at the same time descending.
It is obvious that in place of a roller a comb with a moveable stop applied
to each dent might be employed, but less conveniently, or fixed stops of uneven
'height may be employed, or several combs moveable independently the one of
the other may be similarly applied.
This machine is also applicable in other cases in which it is desired to
accurately space the threads and to separate them into sheds.