CONCLUSION

Since the foregoing was written up to the present time (Sept. 1894) nothing new worth describing has made its appearance. A few card lacing machines have been brought out and several patents have appeared in print, but most of these disappear shortly after.

No mention has been made in this work of Count Sparres’ patent card-cutting machine, which was to have done away with the necessity of putting patterns on point paper by cutting the cards direct from the sketch embossed on a metallic plate. This was a highly ingenious machine, and under suitable conditions produced very fair work, but so far it has proved rather expensive to the company that took it up.

Another process to obtain similar results, patented by Messrs. Dawson and Adams of Macclesfield, was described in the ‘Textile Manufacturer’ in 1893. In this process a perforated plate is filled with small pins; a piece of strong paper is laid over this, and over the paper another plate. The pattern is formed by pushing the pins through the paper between the plates. A large portion of this work can be done by mechanical means. When all the pins required for the pattern are pressed through the paper, the top plate with the sheet of paper is turned upside down, the pins sticking in the paper. By running a roller over the paper the pins can be pressed out of it and into the plate. This plate is then put into a reading and punching machine, and by suitable mechanism the pins can be brought to act on either a card-punching apparatus or on the harness of a pattern loom; so the manufacturer can have a sample of the cloth woven without any cards and can have the cards cut for the factory loom afterwards if he requires them. The cards can be punched at the rate of 2000 per hour.

By means of a pattern cut out of a plate of wax, and a reading in machine, the filling of the pins into the plate, or the hand reading as it is called, can be dispensed with.

It has since been stated that this firm are now trying to perfect a process which was tried thirty years ago, viz. to paint the pattern with electric paint which is to act on needles charged with electricity.

These are all highly ingenious inventions, and are interesting to those who do not lose too much by them; but it will require a nice machine to produce all the variations in a pattern that an experienced designer can, though in many patterns this could be dispensed with, and suitable mechanical means may yet be devised to take a share of the work.


INDEX


PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON


Transcriber's notes:

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