IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING MACHI- NERY EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TEXTILE FABRICS, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH FABRICS
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Mash, of Highfield Terrace, Kentish
Town, in the County of Middlesex, Consulting Engineer, and
Joseph Sharp Bailey, of Keighley, in the County of York, Manu-
facturer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING MACHI-
NERY EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TEXTILE FABRICS, AND IN
THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH FABRICS."
Sealed the 19th August 1853, and dated the 21st February 1858.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Mash and
Joseph Sharp Bailey, at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 21st February 1853.
WE, JAMES MASH, of Highfield Terrace, in the County of, Middlesex,
Consulting Engineer, and JOSEPH SHARP BAILEY, of Keighley, in the
County of York, Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING MACHINERY EMPLOYED IN.
THE MANUFACTURE OF TEXTILE FABRICS, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH
FABRICS," to be as follows, that is to say:

page_text: We use and employ in looms and other like weaving machinery
two or more separate and distinct shuttles, each such carrying separate
and distinct weft-threads, such. shuttles being so mounted, actuated,
and worked that they pass through or between the sheds of the warp-
threads in diagonal directions, from side to side, (and not across such
warp-threads from edge to edge,) and carrying their respective weft-
threads with them also in such diagonal directions. The several sheds
formed in or by the warp-threads for the passage of such shuttles
to be opened or arranged also in diagonal directions. Each separate
weft-thread thus thrown in extends over or between a part only of the
number of such warp-threads, so that in the fabric produced thereby
each separate weft will extend over a portion only of the width or
breadth of such fabric.
By this means we are enabled to make and produce fabrics of
entirely new descriptions, as also to improve and economize the manu-
facture of several of those descriptions already well known. We use
and employ such separate and distinct weft-threads either in combina-
tion with another or other weft-threads or threads thrown into and
forming part of same fabric, by any of the means usually employed; or
such separate weft-threads may be used and employed without such
other weft-thread or threads.
The annexed drawing will illustrate our improvements more fully;
Figure 1, being a sectional elevation, and Figure 2, a front elevation of
part of the sley or lathe of a loom. The warp-threads are represented
by the green lines and spots. Upon the front of the sley, both above
and below, or upon both sides of the warp-threads, there are provided
boxes, slides, or other means for receiving the several shuttles, the
whole or any number of which may be passed or thrown through or
between the sheds of the warp as desired, the sheds of the warp being
made to assume diagonal directions to allow the passage of such
shuttles: the red lines denote the separate weft-threads carried by the
shuttles.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent
filed by the said James Mash and Joseph Sharp Bailey, in the
Great Seal Patent Office, on the 20th August 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we,
JAMES MASH, of Highfield Terrace, Kentish Town, in the County of
Middlesex, Consulting Engineer, and JOSEPH SHARP BAILEY, of
Keighley, in the County of York, Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of February in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in the
sixteenth year of Her reign, did for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto us, the said James Mash and Joseph Sharp Bailey,
Her special licence that we, the said James Mash and Joseph Sharp
Bailey, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as
we, the said James Mash and Joseph Sharp Bailey, our executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
WEAVING MACHINERY EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TEXTILE FABRICS,
AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH FABRICS," upon the condition (amongst
others) that we, the said James Mash and Joseph Sharp Bailey, by
an instrument in writing under our hand and seal, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said James Mash and Joseph Sharp
Bailey, do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement :-
Our improvements in weaving machinery employed in the manu-
facture of textile fabrics consist in so arranging and constructing such

page_text: machinery that the shuttles carrying the weft-threads used or employed
therein, or some of them, when thrown or actuated, shall pass through
the sheds or openings between the warp-threads in directions diagonal
or inclined to the plane of such warp-threads, or from one side of such
warp to the other side, such sheds or openings through the warp-
threads being also in diagonal or inclined directions, in contradistinc-
tion to the usual method of weaving by throwing the shuttle and the
weft-thread in the direction of from edge to edge of the warp, or from
selvage to selvage. We employ this our improved method of weaving
textile fabrics either with or without combination with the usual and
well-known method; that is, we weave or manufacture the fabrics by
means of the weft-threads of such fabrics being thrown or passed
through the sheds by our improved methods only, or we weave them
sometimes by our improved method in combination with the usual and
well-known method.
We will now describe more fully our said improvements, as illus-
trated by the annexed drawings. Figure 1, which is a front elevation
of the sley and reed of a loom, with our improved machinery attached
thereto, sufficient to show the adaptation thereof; Figure 2, is a back
view of the same; and Figure 3, a transverse section taken upon the
line A, A, of the former figures; B, B, the ordinary sley-swords of the
loom, upon which the sley-bed C, and the hand-rail D, are secured;
E, the reed. These parts are formed so as to adapt them to receive the
parts constituting our improved mechanism. Upon the front of the
sley-bed, and upon the front of the hand-rail, are mounted guides or
grooves, or boxes, or other provisions, F, F, F, and F', F', F', to
receive the shuttles G, G, G, when thrown or passed across from one
set to the other. These boxes or other provisions have directions of
any desired amount of inclination to the line of the sley-bed, the dents
of the reed, and consequently to the plane of the warp-threads when
unshedded; the warp-threads are represented coloured green, and the
weft-threads carried by the shuttles coloured red. The shuttles G, G, G,
are thrown or passed across from one set of boxes to the other set, and
vice versa, by means of the pickers or rods L, L, L, and L, L', L',
attached to their respective bars K, and K'. These bars are connected

page_text: together by the rods I, I, and they may be actuated in any convenient
manner so as to obtain the desired movements, as by means of a tappet
or tappets upon the ordinary tappet-shaft, acting through suitable rods
and levers upon the picking-bars; the boxes F, F, F, and F', F', F¹,
are provided with springs, for the purpose of retaining the shuttles
when thrown or passed into them.
It will now be necessary for us to explain how we form the warp-
threads into inclined or diagonal sheds for the passage of the shuttles
from one sot of boxes to the other set. To this end the warp-threads
may be mounted in the loom in the usual manner, passing through the
reed, and connected to the healds or harness, as though the weaving
operation was to be conducted in the usual manner. The action of the
healds, whether actuated by jacquard apparatus or otherwise, first opens
an ordinary shed across the warp from edge to edge, as if for the pas-
sago of an ordinary shuttle through it. This being done, it is imme-
diately transformed into a series of inclined or diagonal sheds by means
of the two plates M, and M², mounted respectively upon the back of
the sley-bed and the back of the hand-rail below and above the warp-
threads. These plates are made to approach each other at the desired
time by means of suitable mechanism from any moving part of the
loom, as from the crank-shaft, or from the backward or forward move-
ment of the sley. They thus assume the positions shown in the
drawings; the edges of these plates towards each other are of such
a contour or form that when they have been made to approach each
other they will be in contact with and act upon the warp-threads, and
cause them to assume a series of sheds in diagonal or inclined direc-
tions so as to allow free passage of the shuttles through them, as before
described.
The shuttles being thrown through the sheds, the plates M, M², are
then moved backward so as to leave the reed clear, and the action of
the heald or harness allows the warp-threads to return to its un-
shedded condition, when the sley proceeds to beat up 'the fabric in
the usual manner, and then to repeat the operation as described.
.
We do not, however, confine or limit ourselves to the above-
described arrangement or construction of mechanism, nor yet to the

page_text: precise mode of operation, as the several sheds may be opened or
formed at any desired angle of inclination, or at different angles of
inclination, the shuttles being also mounted, and thrown, or traversed,
to suit such inclinations.
Any desired number of the shuttles may be thrown or traversed at
one time, according to the nature and description of the fabric to be
produced.
We sometimes modify the arrangement so as to mount the shuttles
and their appurtenances, not upon the sley-bed and the hand-rail, but so
that they shall be stationary with respect to the sley and the reed.
By the formation of a single shed in the usual manner across the
warp, from edge to edge, we are enabled to use one or more weft-
threads thrown in, in the usual manner, in combination with our
improved method. Sometimes we, however, dispense with the use of
the weft-threads thrown in as usual, and weave the fabrics solely by
our improved method, producing thereby fabrics of entirely new descrip-
tions, the weft-threads composing which being of different descriptions
and colours, or either, and each such weft-thread extending over a
portion only of the width of the fabric. We sometimes, to produce
particular kinds of figured or ornamented fabrics, employ more than
one shuttle to each inclined or diagonal shed or opening of the warp-
threads.
Having described our improved method of weaving textile fabrics,
and a mode of carrying it into operation, to which, however, we do not
confine ourselves, we claim,-
First, the application to weaving machinery, and the employment
therewith of shuttles carrying weft-threads which are thrown or passed
through sheds in the warp-threads in any direction inclined to the plane
of the warp-threads when unshedded, and from side to side of the warp,
and not from edge to edge of it, such sheds being opened also in
.inclined directions.
Second, the manufacture of textile fabrics by throwing or passing
the weft-threads through the sheds of the warp in directions inclined to
the plane of the warp unshedded, and from side to side of the warp,
such sheds being opened also in inclined directions.

page_text: Third, the manufacture of textile fabrics with two or more weft-
threads, each extending over a portion only of the width of the fabric.
In witness whereof, the said James Mash, on behalf of himself and
the said Joseph Sharp Bailey, have hereunto set his hand and
seal, this Twentieth day of August in the year of our Lord 1858.