Jacquard Weaving and Designing

by T. F. Bell

TO MARK OUT A CUMBER BOARD

Fig. 64

Cumber boards may be either the exact fineness of the harness, or any set finer; they are better to be a little finer, to allow for any broken rows at the beginning or end of any of the repeats. When the cumber board is finer than the harness, the surplus rows are left idle. A convenient plan of marking off a cumber board is as follows:—Let the pattern be as [Fig. 60]—that is, with a border at each side and the centre to be repeated several times to make up the width of the cloth. Let 24 cords be required for the selvage, 172 cords for the border, and 128 for a repeat of the centre; there are to be four repeats of the centre. Now mark off on the cumber board whatever width the harness is to stand, which should be the same or rather wider than the warp occupies in the reed, and let it be so as to have the harness in the centre of the loom. Suppose [Fig. 64] to give the width of cumber board required. The selvages are wrought from 6 hooks, and there are 8 hooks in each row of a 400 jacquard; therefore 4 rows of the cumber board will be required for each selvage. Mark these off by drawing the lines A and B on the cumber board. Now find out the width the borders are each to occupy, by calculating how wide the yarn will be in the reed, and mark them off by the lines C and G; then mark off the width of each repeat by the lines D, E, and F. Counting the number of holes marked off for the margin, it will be found that there are 32; but as the selvage is on six hooks, the two back holes of each row of the cumber board are marked out, as shown, not being required. The portion marked off for the borders contains 23 rows on each side, whereas only 21-1/2 are required for 172 cords. As the centre repeat is on even rows, and it is usual to leave broken rows to the left-hand side of the painting, the first 4 hooks of the border portion of the machine will be idle; therefore the 4 back holes of the cumber board for both borders are marked out; this still leaves a row too much, which may be marked out at any place. For the repeats, 128 cords, 16 rows are required, and the surplus rows are marked out, as shown. This mounting is supposed to be on a 400 machine, leaving 100 hooks idle to the left-hand side of the mounting, then using 1 row for the selvages, and the remaining 38 rows for the pattern, all but the half of the first row, which is not required.

Fig. 65

In marking out a cumber board for a lay-over, or repeating pattern—if, say, 108 hooks are required for each repeat, which makes 13-1/2 rows of an 8-row machine—if the broken row is to the left-hand side of the painting, and the harness mounted from left to right, then the first four holes of the first row of each repeat of the pattern are marked out in the cumber board to be left empty, as shown in [Fig. 65]. When mounting, no attention would be paid to the cords on the half-row of the machine till the first four rows along the cumber board have been filled, the mounter beginning with the back cord on the first full row of the machine, which is the fifth hook of the tie. Three rows for the selvage, which is on four hooks at the front of the harness, are shown at S, [Fig. 65].

The front of a jacquard is generally considered by workmen to be the cylinder side. Of course, when there is a cylinder on each side there is neither front nor back to it. Sometimes it is very confusing talking of the front and back, one considering it to mean the front of the harness, or front of the loom, and another taking it to be the front or cylinder side of the jacquard, which is usually at the back of the loom for Norwich ties. Of course, the front of the loom is where the weaver stands, or where the cloth is made, and the front of the harness is towards the front of the loom. It simplifies matters greatly by not minding the back or front of the machine, but speaking of every part of the harness, &c., towards the front of the loom as the front of it.

Fig. 66

It frequently happens that figured stripes are required, running up plain or fancy textured goods, either forming borders to the outer edges, or merely ornamental stripes, say 3 or 4 inches from the edges of the cloth, as in towels, toilet-covers, &c. For this class of work it is generally most advisable to work the stripes with a small jacquard, and the plain or fancy texture of the body of the cloth with a shaft mounting. [Fig. 66] shows a mounting of this class; the shafts can be wrought by tappets in the usual way, and small cumber boards, as A, A¹, are fastened to the top rail of the loom for the harness to pass through. It is usual to keep the harness behind the heddles, and it is levelled in the usual way. The yarn may or may not be on the same beam for both portions, according to whether the take-up, or shrinkage, will be the same for both portions or not. Sometimes the shrinkage may be regulated to be alike in both by using different counts of yarn, or drawing it thicker into the reed; but perhaps in most cases two beams would be desirable, unless the texture is much alike for both the stripes and body of the cloth.

The lease rods for the yarn in the harness will not, probably, do to be the same as those for the body yarn, as the action of the heddles will be different from that of the harness. If the same rods will not suit, it is easy to have a pair for each warp, those for the harness being farthest back. Stripes of this description are frequently made in towels, glass-cloths, &c., for clubs or hotels, with the name of the company woven into them. A gathered tie is mostly used for these mountings, except when letters are required to be woven, in which case a gathered tie is not suitable. (See Letters and Monograms.)