AN APPARATUS TO BE APPLIED TO LOOMS FOR PRODUCING FIGURED FABRICS OF ALL KINDS
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Emile Alcan, of Fore Street, London, for the Inven
tion of "AN APPARATUS TO BE APPLIED TO LOOMS FOR PRODUCING FIGURED
FABRICS OF ALL KINDS."-A communication.
Sealed the 22nd January 1858, and dated the 18th November 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Emile Alcan at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
18th November 1857.
I, EMILE ALCAN, of Fore Street, London, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "AN APPARATUS TO BE APPLIED TO LOOMS FOR PRODUCING
FIGURED FABRICS OF ALL KINDS," to be as follows:-
In the Indian mode of weaving colored figured fabrics, and of which an
idea is afforded in the Gobelin tapestry, the colored wefts or shoots are wound
upon quills or spools, and are interlaced with the warp or spooled, as it is
called, by hand, each part of the design upon the same line being put in
separately; the design can therefore be varied to any extent, and the weft is
only used where it appears, and the object of the present Invention is to effect
the spooling or interlacing of the colored wefts by mechanism, which spools
simultaneously all repetitions of the same part of a pattern on a given line.
The accompanying Drawing will serve to convey an idea of the arrangement
I generally employ for this purpose, but which may be variously modified.
A is a bar of iron, to the lower side of which are attached a number of plates
of steel B, B, carrying the shuttles C, which contain the colored warps;
D, D, are two handles, by which the machine may be suspended from a frame

page_text: attached to the frame of the loom. On the front side of the bar are two
rods E, E, along which slide the guides F, F, attached to the bar G, which
carry the shuttle drivers ff. The plates B, B, have brass plates X, X,
attached to them, having grooves in them to receive the ends of the shuttles,
which are placed together side by side in the grooves, the shuttles projecting
perpendicularly from the plates B, B, or in the direction of the threads of the
warp, and their motion is not in the direction of their length, but sideways.
Below the bar A is a small rod b, sliding in guides and having the cuds bent
downwards, which serves to return the end shuttles which cannot be conducted
by the shuttle drivers. Against the back of the bar A is a bar of wood H,
carrying a number of buttons or studs d equal to the number of plates B,
which are introduced between the shuttles and the plates to retain the shuttles
in their places. This bar is connected to the bar A in such a manner as to
admit of its rising and falling. The bar G carries a stud J for the purpose of
moving it laterally; the shuttle drivers are introduced between two contiguous
shuttles, and by the longitudinal movement of the bar G the shuttles are
successively passed from one plate to another. The plato B must be of a
breadth proportioned to the number of shuttles in each series, there being a
shuttle for each color in the design. The several pieces thus described
constitute what may be called the "spooling batten," and when furnished with
its shuttles is ready for operation, which is as follows:-The spooling batten
being suspended within reach of the weaver above the warp in the loom, and
the shuttles placed in the batten in series, each having as many shuttles as
there are colors in the design, and ranged for each series in the order in which
the colors are to appear; if the pedal is depressed it will act upon the threads
of the warp, either by the jacquard hooks or otherwise, to raise a series of
threads according to the effects to be produced, and corresponding by their
number to the series of shuttles and their plates. If the spooling batten be at
the same time depressed by hand, these warp threads in their ascent engage
in the slits corresponding to them between the plates and the stud bar. The
'ascent of the stud bar disengages the shuttles and allows them to be moved
laterally, and to pass from one plate to the next by the operation of the shuttle
drivers. By this movement the interlacing of the colored wefts with the warp
is off-cted since the shuttle which has moved has passed its thread, under the
raised warp threads, thus producing its effect, as in ordinary weaving in which
the back of the stuff is turned towards the workman; but it should here bo
noticed a very small motion of the shuttle will suffice for spooling over a con-
siderably larger space, since the raised threads of the warp in passing between
the slits in the batten form, a kind of conical surface, the summit of which

page_text: coincides with the course of the shuttle; the thread once entered within this
summit, the batten by its action unwinds it over the base of the conc. When
the little wefts have thus been introduced and the pedal left to itself, the
raised threads of the warp return to their original position, the stud bar
descends, and each of the studs or buttons taking its place, retains the shuttles
in the new order in which they stand.
Although the motions of the spooling batten have been described as effected
by hand, they may readily be produced by means of the jacquard machine,
leaving nothing to the workman but the closing of the wefts by the ordinary
action of the reed of the batten. The shuttles may be variously constructed,
but should be as narrow as possible to admit of the employment of a great
number when required; the shuttles employed in the bobbin net manufacture
slightly modified are well adapted for the purpose. Or, instead of shuttles, the
spooling threads may be passed through little rings of glass or porcelain
running upon rods like curtain rings. Each ring would receive its thread
from a bobbin mounted so as to give a suitable tension to the thread; the
assemblage of bobbins would form a bank like a velvet weaver's frame, and
the rings would be moved in the same manner as the shuttles.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Emile Alcan in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
17th May 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EMILE
ALCAN, of Fore Street, London, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Eighteenth day of November, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twenty-first year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Emile Alcan, Her special licence that I, the said Emile Alcan, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Emile
Alcan, my 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 "AN APPARATUS TO BE APPLIED TO
LOOMS FOR PRODUCING FIGURED FABRICS OF ALL KINDS," (communicated by a
foreigner residing abroad,)" upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the

page_text: said Emile Alcan, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, 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 bo 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 I, the said Emile Alean, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement
thereof, that is to say :-
In order that the nature of the Invention may be more readily understood,
I shall commence with a few words as to some of the different modes of
producing figured fabrics, pointing out the limitations to the use of these
modes, in order to shew how greatly this Invention extends these limits.
The most common method of figure weaving is that called "tissuing," in
which the patterns are sometimes produced by the weft as in French shawls
and waistcoatings, and sometimes by the warp as in piled carpet weaving;
this method, which is the only one practised extensively, has the defect of
causing a considerable waste of material according to the number of colours
employed, besides a want of solidity in the threads cut on the back of the stuff,
which is the case with shawls in general. Further, the number of colors
which can be introduced is very limited since the complication of the method
increases with the number of the colors. The method of working followed in
India and China which is now well known, and of which the Gobelin tapestry
may serve to give an idea, is free from these defects. The colored wefts are
interlaced by hand or spooled, as it is called, and may consequently be
varied to any extent, and are only employed in those parts in which they appear
in the pattern. The difference in the cost of labour in those countries and in
ours is an obstacle to the adoption of this system here.
The machines known as damask looms, and which have been employed to
some extent for some years past, have, however, made some advance towards
spooling; they admit in some sort of spooling partially, inasmuch as they are
constructed with a series of small shuttles ranged upon the same batten,
termed the "figuring batten," which extends across the entire breadth of the
stuff, and parallel to the ordinary batten, which interweaves the principal
weft from one list to the other. This main weft forms the body of the stuff,
whilst the figuring batten produces partial effects at distances apart, as, for
instance, groups of flowers or any other design. These small shuttles when
introduced between the threads of the warp give out by their simultaneous

page_text: reciprocating motion the threads of the desired colors at regulated distances,
returning each time to their original position precisely as an ordinary shuttle
would do, with this difference, that instead of traversing the entire breadth
of the stuff, their course is limited to the pattern to be wrought. This
brief explanation will shew that each of these small shuttles requires for
its motion, besides the space to which it furnishes thread, a further space equal
to its own length, over which no spooling can take place. Let it be supposed,
for example, that a stuff 40 inches wide is to be figured with bouquets
each 4 inches wide, the shuttles will in this case require to be 4 inches long
and capable of moving that distance over the warp; it follows therefore that
eacli shuttle will require for its motion a space of 8 inches, and that the
number of bouquets will be limited to 5, with as many smooth spaces, or figured
by the ordinary method, that is to say, presenting the system of flushes with
its attendant inconveniences. By diminishing the breadth of the pattern in
order to produce a greater number of patterns, smaller shuttles it is true may
be employed, but the number of spaces not spooled will be augmented in the
same proportion, so that a serious obstacle is opposed to the general adoption
of this method notwithstanding its great ingenuity.
Latterly attempts have been made to arrange a mixed system by combining
the spooling with the jacquard loom; the jacquard machine raises the threads
and the work women spool by hand in the Indian way.
This method may
present less chance of error for unskilful work women, but the objection as to
the cost of workmanship still remains.
The object of the present Invention is to compose an arrangement combining.
the incontestable advantages of the Indian spooling with economy in the cost
of workmanship. The base of the Invention consists in a spooling mechanism
in which the spaces lost by the courses of the shuttles are got rid of so that
supposing a piece of stuff to be figured is 40 inches wide as in the former
instance, instead of employing 5 shuttles, or in other words losing one-half of
the breadth. for spooling, more than 200 shuttles may be introduced, and the
entire breadth may be spooled. To obtain this result, in the first place, the
shuttles are ranged on their batten to stand parallel to the threads of the
warp and to move laterally across the warp; and, secondly, these shuttles,
whatever may be the breadth of the group of figure threads and the number
of threads of which they are composed, require a very trifling space for their
course, and which space remains always the same, whether 1 or 100 threads
are to be interwoven. This novel result arises from the circumstance that the
threads of each group at the moment of interlacing present a triangular
surface, and that the little shuttle is introduced at the apex of the triangle

page_text: which is all that it is required to traverse in order to pass its thread and to
take up its new position. The thread thus placed is pushed parallel to itself
by the action of the slay reed, and can spread over any required space by the
closing up of the threads. This combination of means which now, for the
first time, allows of readily spooling without loss of space for the course of the
shuttles is, it will be seen, essentially new. The mechanical arrangements for
carrying out the principle as above set forth may be variously modified.
In the accompanying Drawing I have shewn one suitable arrangement for
the purpose, but do not restrict myself there:o.
Figure 1 represents the apparatus complete and ready for action; Figure 2,
a transverse vertical section; and Figures 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, shew
the pieces of the apparatus detached in elevation and plan. The apparatus
is composed of an iron bar A, against which are fixed the plates B, which
serve to support the shuttles C; this bar detached is shewn in elevation in
Figure 3, and in plan in Figure 4; near the two ends are two handles
D, D, each having a small hinge a, a, whereby the apparatus is suspended
from a frame suitably disposed for the purpose and fixed against the frame of
the loom. Against the face of the bar A are bolted the guide rods E, E,
upon which move the slides F, F, fixed to the small bar G, which carries the
shuttle drivers.
The plates B are composed of plates of steel which are screwed to the bar
A, and of a piece of brass X which serves to carry the shuttles. One of these
plates is shown detached in front elevation in Figure 5, and in side elevation
in Figure 6, which shews in what manner the shuttle is supported.
To the under side of the bar A are fixed three small eye bolts c, c, c, which
serve to support and guide the iron rod b, which is bent down at the ends, and
which serves to return the end shuttles which cannot be acted upon by the
shuttle drivers.
To the back of the bar A is connected the wooden bar II, having arrangod
along it a set of studs d, equal in number to the number of plates. They are
introduced between the shuttles and the plates to retain the former in their
places. This bar, which is shewn detached in elevation in Figure 7, and in
plan in Figure 8, it will be seen by referring to Figuro 1 is connected to the
bar A by the two plates I, I, having a slot in each, in order that the bar H
may move vertically when it is required to push the shuttles from one platten
to another, or to retain them in their places. Upon the face of the bar A is
placed the wooden bar G, carrying a number of iron pins f, f, constituting the
shuttle drivers. It is suspended from the two slides F, F, and it has a brass
stud J, by which it is moved laterally along the guides E, E. The shuttle

page_text: drivers are each placed between two contiguous shuttles, and by the lateral
movement of the bar G a shuttle is transferred from one plate to another. It
will be seen that the shuttle C (shewn in side elevation in Figure 2, and in
section on an enlarged scale in Figures 11 and 12) is of a peculiar con-
struction. The thread is rolled tightly upon a pin and thrust into a tube m,
and the pin removed. The tube m is closed completely at one end, and at
the other has a cover n pierced with a small hole o, through which the
thread p passes. In order that this thread may be delivered at the desired
tension, it passes between two plates q, q, pressed together by the springs r, r,
fixed in a sort of stirrup s placed in the cover of the tube.
The small hole t
in the stirrup, Figure 12, corresponds with the hole o in the cover. The
thread in passing out takes the direction shewn in Figure 11, and the loose
end of the thread is fastened to a corresponding thread of the warp. The
thread from the tube m is guided by little glass rings v, v, and is stretched or
drawn back by the action of a spring w, which is distended when acted upon
by the thread, and which draws back the thread when the action has ceased,
this spring performing the office of the shuttle spring in the common shuttle.
Instead of the shuttle just described, any other suitable forms occupying
but a narrow space may be employed, and I would particularly point out as
suitable for this purpose the kind of shuttle employed in the manufacture of
bobbin net lace, the only modification requisite being in the part at which it
is connected to the batten, and which might be formed as shewn in Figure 13,
in which the notch y would enter into the groove in the plate, as in the case-
of the shuttle before described. By this arrangement, three times as many
shuttles could be employed in the same space as could be used of the shuttle
first described.
Further, instead of shuttles properly so called, the spooling threads may be
passed through rings of a hard and smooth material as glass, porcelain, &c. These
rings may be mounted upon a rod, along which they would slide like curtain
rings. Each ring would receive its thread from a bobbin having a backward
draught, that is to say, so mounted as to give a suitable tension to the thread.
The assemblage of bobbins necessary would form an arrangement similar to a
velvet weaver's frame.
The working would be effected by the pins or shuttle drivers, which would
act upon the rings to displace them in the same manner as they act upon the
shuttles. This arrangement would have the advantage of dispensing with
peculiar shaped weft holders, and substituting bobbins of the ordinary size,
which would cost less, and the waste resulting from the little remains on the
weft holders would be done away with.

page_text: The machine shewn in the Drawing, and denominated the "spooling
batten," shews five shuttles to each plate, but this number may be increased
or diminished according to the intended design by modifying the breadth of
the plates accordingly. Each shuttle represents a group of warp threads tied
by the same color. It is easy to arrango for all the requirements of the
intended work.
I shall now proceed to describe the movements to be given to each of the
shuttles of each series, in order that the simultaneous movement of the
shuttles of the same order in the whole series may be understood.
OPERATION OF THE APPARATUS.
Supposing the spooling batten, as above described, suspended within reach
of the weaver above the warp placed in the loom, and suitably mounted, and
the shuttles placed on the batten in series of as many shuttles as there are
colors in the pattern, and ranged for each series in the order in which the
colors should follow; if the treadle is now depressed it will act upon the
threads of the warp, raising groups of figure threads according to the figure
of the pattern, and corresponding in number to the number of the series of
shuttles and plates. If at the same time the spooling batten be depressed by
its handle, these groups in their ascent enter the corresponding clefts or spaces
between the plates, and the stud bar ascends. The ascent of the bar disengages
the shuttles, leaving them free to move sideways, and to pass from one plate to
tho adjacent one. The simultaneous displacement of one or more shuttles in
each series is effected by the action of the shuttle driver bar, and by this move-
ment the interlacing is produced for the shuttle which has been moved has passed
its thread under the raised group, it therefore produces its effect as in the
weaving of ordinary figured fabrics in which the back of the stuff' is turned to
the workman. But here it is to be remarked, that the shuttle has to pass
over a very small space to spool over a much greater space, since the threads
of the group in passing into the spaces between the plates form a triangular
surface, the summit of which corresponds with the point at which the shuttle
passes. The thread having entered at this summit, the action of the batten
unrolls it upon the base of the triangle formed by the stuff made, and as the
thread yields from its combination of springs, this remarkable effect is obtained
with the greatest facility. When these small wefts have been thus introduced,
and the treadle left to itself, the raised threads of the warp return to their
original position; the stud bar being no longer supported by the groups,
descends of itself, and each of the studs regaining its place rotains the shuttles
in the new position which they have assumed. Thus, if we suppose each

page_text: series to be composed of five shuttles, and that each shuttle is numbered in
the regular order, at the commencement of the work the studs will separate
each series composed of the five numbers. After the first stroke of the batten
each stud will stand between the numbers 1 and 2 of the series. After the
second stroke, the studs will stand between the numbers 2 and 3, and so on.
It follows that the complete series will in succession leave the batten at that
end towards which the movement is directed, and will be replaced at the
opposite end upon a plate placed there for this purpose, in order that there
may be no interruption of the work. A return rod effects these movements
of the shuttles spontaneously. I would remark here, that the shuttles may be
worked from right to left, and vice versa, according as it may be wished to
produce the pattern diagonally in one or other direction. As to the breadth
of the patterns or their fineness, they depend upon those of the groups which
are in a manner unlimited; they may comprise from one to any number of
threads, and may be varied as much as may be wished, not only from one
group to another, but also for the different strokes of the batten.
Although I have described the different movements as being produced by
hand, the apparatus may be readily worked by the jacquard machine. The
rise and fall and the lateral movement might be effected by hooks introduced
for that purpose by an arrangement similar to that employed in the manu-
facture of shawls, to produce the action of the rising and falling leashes. All
that the workman would have to do, would be to close up the wefts by the
action of the slay batten. By these means spooled figured stuffs might be
produced equal to those woven by tissueing, with the advantage of avoiding
the loss and want of solidity caused by the cutting.
Having thus described the nature of this Invention, and the manner of
carrying the same into effect, I proceed to state my claims in relation thereto,
in doing which I wish it to be understood that I do not limit myself to the
precise details shewn in the accompanying Drawings, and herein-before
described, as they may be varied without departing from the nature of the
Invention; but I claim for the purpose of producing figured fabrics the
application to looms of a mechanism in which, firstly, the shuttles (or other
contrivances) for supplying the various colored wefts are ranged side by side
in a direction parallel to the threads of the warp, and which shuttles are
moved laterally and not endwise, the shuttles being ranged in sets corre-
sponding to the number of repetitions of the design or pattern in the breadth
of the stuff, and the number of the shuttles in each set being equal to the
number of colors in the pattern; and, secondly, each group of the figure
threads when raised by the treadles is drawn up into a triangular form under

page_text: the
apex of which the passage of the shuttles takes place, whereby the spaco
requisite for the course of the shuttles is reduced to a very small quantity.
In witness whereof, I, the said Emile Alean, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.
Witness,
CH. NATHAN.
E. ALCAN. (L.S.)