Elastic and non-elastic narrow fabrics / and a chapter on narrow fabrics made on knitting machines

by Samuel Brown

Construction of Simple Webs

Before enlarging further on details of fancy looms, it will be well to retrace our steps and consider the construction of some of the simpler forms of web, such as are made on what we have described as plain looms. The webs best known, perhaps, are those such as are used for men’s ordinary garter wear, and for cutting up to retail in the regular dry goods and notions trade. They vary from one-quarter to 2 inches in width. There are several distinct classes of these goods, the best known of which are the loom webs, the lisles and the cables, all of which are of single cloth construction, in which the filling is the main feature. There are generally two cotton warps used in such goods, one of which is commonly called the binder and weaves two up and two down, while the other is called the gut or filler, and works with the rubber warp, one up and one down. The selvages of these webs are made with the filling, which passes around a wire at each pick, the wire remaining stationary while the web is taken away from it in the process of weaving. An illustration of a loom web of this character is shown at Fig. 6. The draft and cam arrangement are shown at Fig. 6A.

Fig. 5.—Combination Warp and Shuttle Figure Produced on Overshot Dobby.

Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10

It is customary in some factories to use only one harness to carry both rubber and gut, inasmuch as the weaving of the two are the same and they both go in the same cavity or pocket of the web. Where such a method is employed there is always a tendency for the gut threads to get out of their proper places, and to fall together in pairs at irregular points, which will produce an objectionable “rowey” appearance in the goods. This will be noticed more particularly in white and light colored webs.

Fig. 6A.—Harness Draft and Weave for Three-Quarter Inch Loom Web

Fig. 7A.—Harness Draft and Weave for One-Half Inch Lisle Web

Fig. 8A.—Harness Draft and Weave for Three-Quarter Inch French Web

Fig. 9A.—Harness Draft and Weave for Three-Quarter Inch Cable Web

In the harness draft shown, it will be seen that one harness is employed for the rubber and one for the gut. It is thus possible to shed the gut harness so as to open more than the rubber, having it travel both higher and lower than the rubber harness at each alternate pick of the loom. By this movement the gut threads will be kept in the desired position, and at the same relative side of the rubber threads in each of the several pockets designed to carry them both. If, from any unusual cause, any of the gut threads get away from their proper places it is easy by this arrangement of separation to lift the gut harness at any time, insert a thread of cotton between the gut and rubber threads, and put them in their proper places when commencing to weave again.

The weave employed in the making of webs of this kind, although of a very simple character, involves a condition which does not favor a straight well woven fabric unless great care is taken to offset troublesome tendencies. The nature of the weave is such that at one pick the binder harness changes, while on the next pick it remains open and does not change, the rubber and gut harness changing only. The result of this movement is such that one shed clears for the reception of the filling much better than the other, so that at one side of the web the filling will hug the edge wire, shown at W in Fig. 6A, while at the other side of the web the failure to get a good clearance prevents the filling getting so snugly around the wire. Therefore, as the web draws away from the edge wire in the process of weaving, the tendency is for one selvage rubber cavity to be small, while the other is large, which means that at the open side there is a freedom for contraction of the edge rubber which is not present at the other side, and a long-sided uneven web is the result.