Handkerchiefs.
Handkerchiefs are made in cotton, either by the drop-box, the dobby, or by a handkerchief motion. We are referring now to those made without colour, with ribbed side and cross borders. A stripe border is made by warping the necessary coarse ends (to form the selvage) with the plain ends. To put in the cross border, either the drop-box loom is used with two or more shuttles having different counts of yarn, or, as is more general, the shed is kept open for the reception of several picks of weft in the same counts as the body of the handkerchief. This is easily done by the dobby, which also continues to hold the weft at each selvage by a few plain ends worked from a different jack, or by a catch cord.
It is impossible to have a lattice with as many lags as there are picks from heading to heading, consequently lags are pegged to weave the heading only, the lattice being stopped during the time that the plain body of the handkerchief is being woven. In the double-lift dobby it is possible to stop it, so that the pegging of the lags where the motion of the lattice is arrested will suffice to weave plain until motion is again communicated to the lattice.
Sometimes a special handkerchief motion is used. In this arrangement a chain of lags is arranged, each lag having holes for three pegs. By means of this motion, which is shown in [Fig. 61], “a border can be obtained without drop-boxes or dobby, and without reducing the speed of the loom. The tappets, which are of the usual form for plain weaving, are not secured to the tappet shaft, but are driven from it through the medium of a clutch, which, when disengaged, allows the shaft to continue revolving whilst the tappets remain stationary; thereby enabling any required number of picks, even or odd, to be put into the same shed, according to the length of time they are kept in this condition. The clutch is under the control of a set of lattice, which cause the disengagement of the clutch, and a succession of pegs causes the tappets to remain out of action according to the desired number of picks required.”
FIG. 61.—HANDKERCHIEF LOOM. To face pp. 116 and 117.
The other pegs regulate, secondly, the stoppage of the take-up to give a better defined rib; and thirdly to stop the chain itself when necessary. The chain only represents the picks in the heading, and is stopped during the plain weaving of the body. It is started again by an ingenious measuring motion, which by a contrivance of levers starts the chain one pick, after which the catch put out of gear by peg three continues the motion. The makers claim for this motion a high rate of speed, and a low first cost of apparatus.
CHAPTER VII.
FANCY WEAVING BY THE JACQUARD, ITS CONSTRUCTION, CARD CUTTING, WOVEN PILE CLOTHS.
The jacquard machine for shedding is employed in the production of some of the most complicated cotton fabrics that are woven. In its primary principle it is very simple, strangely so when we reflect on its importance in the manufacturing industry, and that by it only are we enabled to make so very ornamental cloths of great extent and beauty. Originally a French invention, the contrivance of Joseph Marie Jacquard, of Lyons, it was introduced into England in the early part of this century and adopted by the silk manufacturers. Its manufacture was early taken up by Lancashire firms, and we find now that in improved forms it is in extensive practical use in the cotton trade at the fancy weaving establishments of Bolton, Ashton, Preston, Glasgow, and other towns.