IMPROVED SHUTTLE-DRIVING MECHANISM FOR NARROW-WARE LOOMS.
William B. Willard, New York city.—This invention, relating to looms for weaving narrow ware, consists in the arrangement of a spur wheel traveling on a fixed rack, and actuating a movable rack attached to the shuttle carrier. Motion is given to the spur wheel by a cam on the main shaft of the machine, which acts through a slotted lever and a connecting rod. The object is to provide mechanism for throwing the shuttle in such looms. In the loom the shuttlerace is divided at its center, leaving a space of sufficient width to admit of the passage and shedding of the warp. The shuttle slides in the race, and is of such length as to overlap the opening, so that it may pass smoothly from one section of the shuttlerace to the other. The shuttle is pierced to receive the fingers of the shuttle carrier, which slides on the bar. The latter is a piece of sheet metal, which is turned over at its upper edge to receive the bar, and is provided with guides for the fingers. The said fingers are capable of engaging with the holes in the shuttle and project below the piece of sheet metal, and are bent at right angles, and provided with grooved friction rollers, which engage with a cam slot of such form that it will draw the fingers, one at a time, downward out of the shuttle, and retain them below the warp during the passage of the portion of the shuttle with which they engage, through the threads of the warp, and replace them after that part of the shuttle passes the warp.