Sectional Warping.
PLATE III.—SECTIONAL WARPING FRAME. To face pp. 28 and 29.
Where a warp is composed of two or more different counts of yarn, or where a ball warp is required without having recourse to the old circular warping mill, it is usual to use a sectional warping frame—[Plate III].
As its name indicates the beam is warped in several sections called “cheeses,” of the usual diameter, but only about five inches in width. Several of these sections are afterwards slid on a bar, compressed at the ends and treated in the usual way. If required to be made into a ball, the ends are gathered into a loose rope and coiled in a balling machine. This latter method is generally adopted in those spinning mills where the yarn is warped by the spinner and sold in the ball. The sectional mill is a diminutive beaming frame of 400 bobbins running at a high speed. The yarn is warped on a square block between two circular plates, and when doffed is flangeless, thus necessitating careful treatment.
There is an interesting piece of apparatus attached to these machines for making all the cheeses of a uniform diameter when a certain fixed length has been wound on, and the increase of diameter is regulated automatically by the increment of length. The advantage of this is obvious when using two counts, say 30’s and 40’s, the warp in each case being, say, 1200 yards long.
If the diameter of warp were not regulated in any way, and the same strain placed on the yarn, the 30’s warp would be of greater diameter than the 40’s, or if of the same diameter the 40’s would be softer.
To obviate this a standard cheese is made; and in making it, the attendant releases the setting lever, and allows the stud to move freely in the vertical slot. With it is also released the scale lever, and the other parts which control the presser. A required length of warp is wound on the section block, say the length of a cut, which is indicated by the measuring roller, and the movement thus made by the presser is shown by the movement of the stud in the vertical slot. The hand-wheel is then turned until the stud has returned to its former position opposite the recess in the back of the slot. The position of the nut is then noted on the front scale, and tightened up by the handle shown. The setting lever is now brought forward, and the stud resumes its normal position in the recess, and the setting operation completed. In order that each succeeding section may be the exact size and length of its predecessor, the only attention necessary by the warper is to see that the revolution indicator points to the same figures. Thus, when all are run off together, their sizes diminish at an equal rate.
This machine is taking the place of the warping mill in the cotton trade, especially for coloured work.