IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING ORNAMENTAL FABRICS
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Cunningham and Robert
Cunningham at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 24th May 1866.
We, JOHN CUNNINGHAM and ROBERT CUNNINGHAM, both of Paisley, in the
County of Renfrew, North Britain, Manufacturers, do hereby declare the nature
of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING ORNAMENTAL FABRICS,"
to be as follows, that is to say :-
This Invention has for its objects to simplify and cheapen the weaving of
certain kinds of ornamental fabrics.
One part of the Invention relates more particularly to single-faced fabrics,
of or similar to the "Paisley shawl" class, and having a "plain cloth" texture,
and it admits of the production of a fabric closely resembling ordinary fabrics
of this class woven with a full warp, although it requires only three-fourths of
the warps, one-half of the tic, and one-half of the harness ordinarily employed
in producing such fabrics.
In carrying out this part of the Invention single-lift jacquard apparatus
may be used, and the cards may be perforated in the ordinary way. Each
mail has three warp threads passed through it, and these are equivalent to
four threads which in the ordinary system occupy two mails. Of the three
threads in each mail the middle one is by preference stouter than the
other two, and whilst these two threads are alternately pressed by a pair
of beddle leaves in the ordinary way so as to be thrown alternately to the
surface, the thread not thrown to the surface being raised when required for

page_text: the ground shot, the middle thread remains in the body of the fabric, being
held between the ground shots and the face shots; or the three threads
may be raised one after the other for the ground shots by three leaves of
heddles,
A second part of the Invention relates more particularly to two-faced or
double fabrics, of or similar to the "Paisley shawl" class, and having a "plain
cloth" texture.
In carrying out this part of the Invention only two leaves of heddles or healds
are used in place of the four hitherto employed in weaving the same class
of fabrics. The heddles employed consist of upper and lower loops simply
linked together and are known as "clefted " heddles. Instead of the threads
to be acted upon by the respective heddles being entered through the upper
loops only, or through the lower loops only, the threads for the under side are
entered through the lower loops, and the threads for the upper side are
cutered through the upper loops of the same heddles. In entering the threads
it is preferred to enter the two under threads from, say, the first mail through
the first lower loops of the two heddle leaves which may be distinguished as
first and second leaves; the two upper threads from the second mail aro
entered ane through the first upper loop of the second heddle leaf, and the
other through the second upper loop of the first heddle leaf; the second pair
of lower threads from the third mail are entered through the two second
lower heddle loops, whilst the second pair of upper threads from the fourth
mail are entered through the second and third upper loops of the second and
first heddles respectively, and so on throughout. After passing through the
heddles the threads may be entered through the reed in various ways, but it
is preferred to enter them in pairs, the thread from cach upper heddle loop
being thus paired, not with the thread from the lower loop linked thereto, but
with the one from the next preceding lower loop. The two leaves of heddles
with the warps entered through them as described aro raised and held down
alternately, and produco precisely the same effect as four leaves of heddles as
ordinarily worked. The improved arrangements also dispense with the
crossing of warp threads, otherwise required to obtain a good fabric of this
class.
A third part of the Invention relates to the production of "middles" or
centres" on double fabrics of the kind already referred to.
These terms
are used to designate self-colored, single-colored, or ground-like spaces not
1.ecessarily in the centre of the shawl or other fabric. The spaces are pro-
duced by wefts thrown in independently of and in addition to the ordinary
figuring wefts which produce the design in the intermediate parts in the same

page_text: lines across the fabric. In single-faced fabrics the wefts for these middles are
flushed on the back of the fabric at the intermediate parts, being afterwards
equivalent for this would be to throw
In double fabrics however none of the
cut away, and in double fabrics the
them into the middle of the fabric,
wefts have hitherto been cut away (except, of course, at the selvages), whilst
if the wefts for the middles are enclosed in the fabric they will tend to
render the thickness unequal, and to show partially through at the intermediate
parts and thereby spoil the colorings of those parts.
By the present Invention the difficulties thus indicated are overcome by
flushing the wefts of the middles on either of the outer sides of the fabric,
bringing them out at points a little beyond where they are woven in to form
the middles. These flushed wefts are afterwards cut off as closely as possible
to their points of emergence, and the ends shrink out of sight within the fabric.
The required flushing is produced by the jacquard apparatus, and the preparing
of the design for it presents no difficulty. It is preferred to flush the wefts
for the middles to the side that is uppermost in weaving, and when they are
flushed on the side or sides on which the middles or some of them are shown
partial; or spaced leaves of heddles are used for acting on the portions of the
warps which are woven into the middles to confine the interweaving action to
theso parts and to admit of the intermediate parts being flushed. The middles
may be produced at identical points on both sides of the fabric; but in general
where there is a middle on one side there will be none on the corresponding
part of the other side. There may, however, be some middles on one side
and some on the other, which will admit of the shawl or fabric being folded
in a variety of ways to present different combinations of the two sides.