IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WEAVING LOOPED AND PILED FABRICS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Bristow Hunt at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 7th September 1876. A communication
from abroad by Octave Alexandre Gallet, of Paris, France.
BRISTOW HUNT, of Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WEAVING LOOPED AND PILED
FABRICS." A communication from abroad by Octave Alexandre Gallet, of Paris,
France.
The manufacture of velvets and plushes require a longer time than that of other
fabrics, owing to the employment of the wires round which the warp is looped;
this loop holding fast the wire the latter can only be released by cutting the warp
threads.
This improved apparatus when applied to looms allows of the manufacture
without cutting the loops of a new description of cloth, comprising many varieties
of looped fabrics. Velvets and other piled fabrics can also be thereby manufactured
much more economically than heretofore.
The apparatus is mounted on a special "batten," which admits the making of a
loop on the warp threads of which the velvet is to be made.. This warp is wound
as usual on a socond warp beam, and it is also arranged in a special manner, which
allows the use of this improved apparatus and consequently a part of the Invention,
which consists,
First. In the application of this improved apparatus, which the Inventor calls a
looper."
And, Secondly. In a special arrangement of the warp which forms the velvet..
All the rest of the loom is precisely similar to the ordinary looms.
In front of the ordinary batten of the loom there is arranged a second batten,
which carries on two parts of its rail (which has no shuttle boxes) two lugs, into
each of which is passed a screw forming a pivot on which the looping apparatus can
vibrate. This apparatus forms the principal part of the Invention. It is composed
of a frame to which is fixed a kind of comb, the teeth of which, placed at equal
distances apart, have a triangular section, the apex of the triangle boing downwards;
this comb is fixed firmly in the frame. On each tooth is a flat metal hook pointed
at its extremity. This flat hook is movable round a metallic axis screwed in the
bar of the fixed comb. Behind the fixed comb is a bar capable of being moved to
the right and the left, its ends entering recesses in the frame which thus serves to
D. 077

page_text: guide it. The other end of these metallic hooks is fixed by a metal axis to this
movable bar. In the centre of the frame is a lever, the ass of which is fastened to
the frame, and the end thereof passes into the movable bar.
It will be readily understood from this description that when the lever is pushed
to one side (say the left) all the spaces between the teeth of the comb will be left
completely free or open, and if the apparatus when mounted on its batten be inclined
downwards into the warp intended for the velvet, all the threads of the said warp
will enter into these teeth. If now the levor is inclined to the right, the metallic
looks will immediately seize hold of the threads between the teeth of the comb.
Then if the looping apparatus be raised, since the threads of the velvet warp (as
will be hereafter explained) can yield without losing their tension, it results that if
the shuttle is thrown across once or twice, all the threads of the velvet warp will
be looped up. If then the lever is pushed to the left, the teeth of the comb are
again freed.
The looping apparatus may be raised and the operation repeated as
often as desired, the threads will be tlien found to be quite perpendicular to tho
body of the cloth. This forms a looped fabric. If however a velvet or piled fabric
is desired, this must now be passed (several times if necessary) through an ordinary
shearing, machine, which will produce a perfect velvet or piled fabric with an even
and regular surface.
The second part of the Invention consists in a particular arrangement of the
velvet warp. At the rear of the frame is placed a comb, through the teeth of which
the velvet warp passes, coming previously from its waip beam over a back bearer,
but between the back bearer and the comh, each thread of the warp passes through
a nail, to the extremity of which hangs a weight, which prevents the formation of
"slack," and keeps the threads all at a proper tension. A friction break is applied
to the warp beam, so that the velvet warp can be drawn off as required.
In a modification of the looping apparatus the flat hooks instead of being
pivotted to the two bars are made in the form of the teeth of a second comb and
brazed on to the bar, so that as the bar is moved to and fro the spaces between the
teeth of the fixed comb are open and closed. This is a more solid and economical
method of constructing the apparatus.