IMPROVEMENTS IN PRODUCING CHENILLE OR FUR MATERIAL FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CARPETS OR OTHER PILE FABRICS AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR."
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Reid Lawson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 23rd January 1882.
JAMES REID LAWSON, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
Designer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN PRODUCING CHENILLE OR FUR MATERIAL FOR
THE MANUFACTURE OF CARPETS OR OTHER PILE FABRICS AND IN APPARATUS
THEREFOR."
This Invention has for its object to cheapen the production and improve the
quality of chenille or fur material to be used either as weft or warp in making
carpets or other pile fabrics.
The Invention consists partly in employing improved machinery of a semi-
automatic character in the weaving process employed in the first production of the
chenille. The worsted or material to form the fur is interwoven as weft with
spaced sets of warps, which warps are by preference formed of linen threads alone
in order to combine strength with comparative fineness or of linen and cotton
threads combined. After being woven the fabric is cut along the spaces between
the sets of warp threads so as to form separate strips; and this cutting and the
subsequent folding or closing together of the pile forming the sides of each strip
are effected in the same machine in a manner to secure more uniformity and
generally better results than are obtainable when the strips are cut and finished
in a separate machine.
The chenillo fabric as it is being woven passes over the usual breast beam of the
loom and if necessary over a frictional or tension roller; and thence proceeds past
a knife roller or series of knife edged discs which cut it into separate strips. The
strips continuing onwards pass partly round a grooved metal roller which is heated
by steam or in any other convenient way, and each strip entering a groove has its
pile turned up from the sides and closed together, the heating imparting a set or
permanence to the closed pile.
The weaving is effected by power-loom mechanism suitably modified from that
in use in weaving plain fabrics, the parts being arranged to stop and start easily
and without shock by means of a hand lever, and the weaver stops the loom when-
ever a change of shuttle is required, and either changes the shuttle by hand, if a
single-celled shuttle box is used, or moves the shuttle box if one with several cells
0.11

page_text: is used, so as to place the shuttle next required in the proper position. The shuttle
box may be either a rotating box or a straight box shifting vertically horizontally
or at any convenient angle. The weaver is guided in changing the shuttle both as
regards the times for changing and the colors by a narrow colored pattern paper
placed at the selvedge of the fabric and moving therewith as the weaving proceeds.
The shuttle box may be shifted either by direct application of the hand to it, or by
turning a disk or moving a bar connected to the shuttle box, such disk or bar
having the colors of the shuttles painted or otherwise marked or indicated on it,
and the operation consisting in moving the disk or bar so as to bring the desired
color to an index, or in moving an index lever to the color.