Improvements in Knitting Machines.
Year: 1895

page_text: TROYIDIONAL DIECIFICATION.
Improvements in Knitting Machines.
I EDWIN JOHN ADAMS BABBAGE, 3 Lisson Grove Mutley Plymouth,
Hosiery Manufacturer do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
It is an improvement in machines for making diamond, check or other patterns
knitted fabric, and having two beds of needles, on one of which the pattern is worked
by means of a jacquard (or otherwise).
The disadvantage with these machines is that large solid colour checks made on
them either, when stretched allow the back strands of wool to show through
(the work being a kind of rib stitch) or they have long loose strands on the back,
or inside, of the knitting, which inconvenience the wearer.
My improvement makes these solid colour (or other) checks &c. on the bed with
the jacquard while each stroke of the machine at the same time knits on the other
bed a piece of web which acts as a lining, the loose strands being between the two
pieces of knitting, which two pieces (the check, or other pattern, piece & the lining)
are knitted together at the edges.
This is done by not allowing the needles on the two beds to cross in working,
which would give a kind of rib stitch, but by causing the needles on one bed to
work before those on the other bed. This can be arranged in different ways.
instance supposing the jacquard works on the back bed. Then
For
(1) On the back bed would be the Jacquard cams while on the front bed might
be two sets of cams one opposite the Jacquard cams (for doing ribbed work when
desired) & the other either to the right or left hand. When working solid colour
checks &c. the cams opposite the Jacquard cams would be thrown out of action &
the machine would then make the lining on the front bed.
(2) The machine might have only one set of cams on the front bed, but these
might be so mounted as to be capable of being shifted so that for doing rib work
they might be put opposite the Jacquard cams while for making the lining they
could be shifted on one side into the correct position.
(3) The machine might simply have a single set of cams on the front bed, not
opposite the Jacquard cams but so fixed as to make the lining. In this case
however the machine would not be capable of doing ribbed work.
The essential part of my improvement is the use of a set of cams not opposite the
Jacquard cams but set so that the machine will make Jacquard patterns on one bed
while knitting a web or lining on the other bed.
Dated this 18th day of April. 1895.

page_text: .
1, EDWIN JOHN ADAMS BABBAGE of 3 Lisson Grove, Mutley, Plymouth,
Hosiery Manufacturer do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :-
This invention is for the purpose of avoiding the disadvantages which have so far
been met with in knitting machines of the Lamb (or straight, or flat) type in making
fabrics with two or more colour yarns, which are so arranged in the knitting, by
jacquards or other pattern changing devices, as to produce a pattern on the face of
the work, & which disadvantages are most apparent when the design of the fabric
is in large spaces of one colour side by side with large spaces of another colour, &
especially when these spaces are of a diamond or an irregular shape. (The
handknit tartan hose form a good & familiar example of the style of pattern
referred to.) Two of these disadvantages are as follows.―
If the fabric is made only on one bed of a Lamb type machine in which the
pattern is formed by a jacquard (or other pattern changing apparatus) directly it
is attempted to make a wide stretch of light colour with a dark colour on each side
of the light colour, long loops of the dark wool are left loose on the wrong side or
inside of the fabric, as the dark wool has to be carried behind the light without
knitting in the space occupied by the light.
This a great disadvantage & practically prevents making this class of pattern on
the single bed. To get over this, some makers use a machine with two parallel beds
& having one of these beds arranged to work with the pattern changing apparatus.
They then work both of these beds at the same time making the needles cross &
thus forming a rib stitch & having these loose strands caught in. This fabric
however has another disadvantage in that the front of the fabric is not so good a
copy of hand knitting & that being a rib stitch directly it is stretched at all, the
stitches on the face of the work separate & the loose strands which have been
caught in are visible through the face of the work, the light colour shewing
through what should be a space entirely dark & vice versa. This invention is to
obviate these two disadvantages & in carrying it out I use a knitting machine of
the Lamb (or straight or flat) type having front & back needle beds one of which
is fitted to work in connection with a jacquard, or other pattern changing device.
For the purposes of this description we will suppose this is the back bed.
With this machine the face of the fabric with the desired pattern would be
knitted on the back bed & my invention is at the same time to knit a lining on the
front bed connected only with the knitting on the back bed at such points, or places,
as may be desired.
When making those parts of the fabric in which the two pieces of knitting made
on the front & back beds respectively are not intended to be joined together except
at the edges, I so arrange the movements of the machine that one colour yarn knits
only on the needles of the front bed & the other colour yarn knits only on those
needles of the back bed which have been put into action by the jacquard or other
pattern changing device, the said needles on the back & front bed not being allowed
to cross one another in working. When however I desire to join the two pieces
together I make the back & front needles cross one another so that both sets work
the same yarn at the same time. I describe in detail the best method of
accomplishing this & illustrate the same in the accompanying drawings which show
the cams on the underpart of the knitting machine carriage (the stand not being
shown nor any parts which are not absolutely needed for this description). The
cams shown are the Dubied type but my invention applies also to other makers'

page_text: Lamb type knitting machines making patterns by a Jacquard or other pattern
changing device. In these drawings in each set the upper cam.plate (having B1 &
B2) is that which works on the back (which I will call the Jacquard) bed while the
lower cam plate works on the front bed. The dotted cams are out of work only
those shown by lines being employed, & of these E1 & E 3 draw up into the bed
when the machine carriage to which these cam plates are fixed, is travelling from
right to left (Fig. 1) while E 2 & E4 are in work, this action being reversed when
the carriage travels from left to right (Fig. 2) E 2 & E 4 being then out of work
& E1 & E3 working. On the Jacquard bed in the Dubied system of working
there are two kinds of needles in each groove, the upper one of which forms the
knitting stitch, when the lower needle, called the jointed needle, which is actuated
by the Jacquard or other device & moved by cams B1 & B 2 has pushed it into
the position for the cams C1 or C2 to raise it to take the yarn from the yarn
carriers L or D, after which the E cam (the particular cam depends on which way
the carriage is travelling) pulls it down, & in so doing pushes both it, & the jointed
needle, out of work until the jacquard again actuates the said jointed needle. Each
of these needles (the upper & the jointed) has a heel, or shank, that of the jointed
being shown at W, & of the upper at X in Fig. 2. W. on line O shows the shanks of
the jointed needles which have been pushed up by the jacquard & have in
their turn pushed corresponding X shanks up to line P. In each figure, O shows
the line of working of the shanks of those jointed needles which have been actuated
by the jacquard, while P shows the line of the shanks of the corresponding upper
needles. In Fig. 1 H shows the line of the shanks of those jointed needles which
have not been actuated by the jacquard, while M shows the line of the corresponding
upper needle shanks.
In Figs. 2, 3 & 4 H & M are omitted as unnecessary for showing the actual
working. R on the front, bed shows the line of the shanks of the front needles
which are similar to the back upper needles. On both back & front hed, when the
shanks are raised by C cams the needles take yarn from the yarn carrier then
opposite that particular cam.
The four figures represent four strokes or traverses of the carriage, 1 & 3 being
from right to left, & 2 & 4 being left to right. Supposing that yarn carrier L
has light wool & D has dark. Then in Fig. 1 on the Jacquard beds the shanks of
those needles which have been brought into work by the action already described
will follow the line P & passing over C1 the needles will take light wool from L,
while on the front bed the needles following the line K, & passing over C4 will
take dark wool from D, the two pieces of knitting being separate (it will be
noticed that K seems to pass through G 6. The reason of this is that the shading
represents a bevel in these G cams which allows the needle shanks to push the
cams up into the plate instead of their working the needles). The yarn carrier L
is moved by the cannon or finger A 1 & D by A 4. At the end of this stroke &
on the carriage reaching its limit to the left hand a stop comes into action which
withdraws cannons A 1 & A 4 bringing into action A 2 for L & A 3 for D (Fig. 2).
The result of this is, that in Fig. the Jacquard bed needles following line P
again take light yarn from L while the front needles following K take, dark
from D. On the carriage reaching the right end of the machine another stop,
which I call the special stop, comes into action, (as described hereafter) which by
means of a slide, or in any convenient way, throws cam G 5 (which during the
strokes 1 & 2 has been out of working position) into action. As the result of this
in Fig. 3 Jacquard bed needles following line P pass over C1 & front bed
needles following K pass over C3 at the same time, thus crossing one another
& both taking dark yarn from D, thus joining the two formerly separate pieces
of knitting. K afterwards passes over C 4, the front needles thus making an extra
row of knitting by taking light yarn from L. At the left end of the traverse of
carriage the stop for shifting the cannons again comes into action withdrawing
A2 & A3 & bringing A & A 4 again into work; while the same stop. or
another, again throws G5 out of action. In Fig. 4 Jacquard bed needles follow

page_text: line P over C 2 taking dark yarn from D & front bed needles follow line K
over C 3 taking light yarn from L.
The repetition of these four movements makes a fabric which has not the
aforesaid disadvantages. In practice however it would be better not to bring G 5
into work every 4th row but to leave longer intervals between, & this I would do
either by moving the special stop by hand at the desired point, or automatically
by any suitable means for bringing this special stop into the correct position for
throwing G5 into work (by means of a slide or any other convenient method)
only at the time when the required number of rows have been knitted without G5,
& for withdrawing the said special stop as soon as it had actuated G 5. In
practice it would be advisable to make the attachment, for shifting the special stop,
adjustable, so that it could be set to shift the said stop automatically after 2, 4, 6, 8,
or any desired number of rows. The result of this method of working is to make
a fabric, with the same appearance on the face, as if it had been made on the
ordinary single bed Jacquard machine, but instead of loose loops on the wrong side
there would be a smooth lining, the said loops being between the two pieces of
knitting & these said pieces of knitting being only joined at certain places. As
more rows of stitches would be made on the front bed than on the Jacquard bed in
the same number of traverses of the carriage, the Jacquard stitches should be
made longer so that the fabric will be flat. I next describe two slight variations
in the arrangement of machine which I could adopt for making substantially the
same class of fabric, the same method of knitting a certain number of rows without
the needles crossing, & then allowing them to cross, so as to join the two pieces of
knitting, being however the basis of each.
First a machine might be used with only one set of cams on the back or
Jacquard bed, say cams B 1, C1 E1 & E2 (or cams B2, C2, E3, E4 might be
thrown out of work) & on the front bed all the cams E 5, E6, E7, E 8, C3, C4,
G5, G6, G 7 & G 8 in Fig. 2 which cam is dotted not being used at all in the
former method. In using this type of machine G 5 & G6 would at first be out of
work & G7 & G8 in use. In stroke Fig. 1 the action of needles would be the
same. Stroke Fig. 2 B 2, C 2, E3, E 4 being absent, or not in action, the back
needles would be worked by B 1 & C1 (instead of B 2, & C2) taking dark wool
from D while G 6 being out of work & G 8 in action, the front needles would be
worked by C4 instead of C3 taking light wool from L. Before commencing
stroke Fig. 3 I should as before described throw G 5 into work so that the
working of the needles would be the same as in Fig. 3. In Fig. 4 G 5 would
again be out of work & G 8 being in work the front needles would be actuated
by C 4 taking dark wool from D while the Jacquard bed needles would be worked
by B1 & C1 taking light wool from L. The resulting fabric would be the same.
Another variation would be to have only the same cams working on the back bed
as in the last description & to have only one set of cams (say E7, E8, C4, G7,
& G 8) on the front bed. These cams would however be mounted on a movable
plate, so that the plate with the whole set of cams, at any desired point or interval
in the working, could be shifted by hand, or automatically, so that C 4 would be
opposite to C1. The result of this would be that when C1 & C4 were not
opposite each other the pieces of knitting on the back & front beds would be
separate, but when they were brought opposite the needles would cross & knit the
two pieces together. In using this invention with what are known as three or
four, (or more) colour Jacquard (or other methods of pattern changing) machines
it would be possible, by so adjusting the shifting of the special stop, actuating G 5,
to cause the back & front needles to cross only when one particular colour yarn
was being delivered to them, so that the connection between the back & front
pieces of knitting would only be in that one colour. When only using two colours
the same action which withdraws cannons A 1 & A 4 bringing into action A 2
& A 3, & vice versa, could be adapted to throw into, & out of, work cam G 5, but
this method of shifting G 5 would not be suitable for more than 2 colours unless
it was desired to join the two pieces of knitting in every 4th row. The Dubied