Cotton Manufacturing

by Christopher Parkinson Brooks

Loom Tackling.

A loom requires a considerable amount of repairs and renewals, the performance of which is delegated to an overlooker (sometimes called a tackler or tuner) placed over each hundred looms. If on fancy goods, fewer looms are under the control of one man; if plain narrow goods are woven, more. His work is to keep the looms supplied with warps, gait them up, repair or tackle the loom when necessary, provide weavers, and, especially in a small place, perform rather multifarious duties. When the weavers’ beam has been placed in the loom, having the healds and reeds attached to the warp, the overlooker draws the gears forward, placing a weight rope or chain round one beam ruffle, and, if a loomed beam, fixes the reed. The healds are slung loosely to the heald roller straps, and then the twist attached to the sand roller. If old healds are used, the lap end of a former cut is placed on the roller, and the warp tightened. If new healds have had the warp drawn in, a lap end is attached to the roller and the twist tied to it, care being taken to draw up any ends which may be ruffled. The temple is fixed so as to revolve in the direction required to distend the cloth. Then with the cranks near the top centre, the healds are levelled by means of the cords below being attached to the lambs and treadles. After a little manœuvring so as to make the shed bottom nicely, whichever heald is down, to get the healds level all across, and clear of any obstruction or drooping ends, the lease rods are put in. The second and back healds are raised when the back rod has to be put through the front, the third being up for the thin rod. A few picks of weft being put through by hand, a start is made after finishing the weighting of the beam and changing the pinion, if necessary. The weighting is somewhat important; for light cloths, fine yarns and light picks less weight is required than for the heavier classes of goods. More weight is required for full beams and under certain other conditions.

It is impossible to enumerate all the little points in the management of looms, which it is the overlooker’s duty to perform; and only long practical experience can teach their proper performance. However, neglecting the derangements, which cause faults in the cloth, and which will be treated of in the next chapter, we will refer to some of the commoner mishaps. The shuttle flying out of the loom is caused generally by some obstruction in the shed, floats, projecting reed, top of shed too low or bottom too high, or by a crooked spindle or bad picker. Cops flying off the shuttle peg may be attributed to too large holes in the cop, or shuttle spring too weak or unpacked. When the loom does not knock off when the weft is done, the fork may be bent and thus lifted by grate, an end of weft may be hanging to the shuttle sufficiently long to catch in the cloth and lift the fork. But for the cause of this, and also of the loom knocking off when weft is not broken, the weft stop-motion must be carefully watched. The picking may sometimes be so strong as to throw the shuttle out of the loom, or so weak as to allow it to be trapped by the closing shed. By judicious setting of plate and bowls, any desired result may be obtained.

When by the shuttle binding too tightly in the box, etc., a fracture of the weft is made, it is said to be “cut.”

The Weavers.

The average weaver runs four looms, but in many sheds provision is made for three, or even two-loom weavers, whilst qualifying themselves for the higher number. In some North-East Lancashire towns five and six-loom weavers are not infrequent on narrow strong goods. The weaver’s duties require some little skill, and consist of piecing up the broken ends of warp and drawing them through the heald and reeds, filling the shuttles with weft and placing them in the loom as those in working become empty, oiling, doffing “cuts,” putting in the coloured headings—an important part of dhooty weaving—oiling, and performing simple repairs.

The wages obtainable on ordinary goods, such as shirtings and printers, should not be less than 11s. per pair, to give satisfactory results, while 12s. 6d. per pair on dhooties and simplest fancy goods is good.

The waste in this process is important, four per cent. being allowable on common yarns, say 36’s, this being reduced on finer and consequently better copped yarns (weft).

The foregoing remarks apply to the weaving of plain cloths only, and that by the most usual methods. In any process whatever, it may be that some variation will be found to exist, and, before concluding this part of the subject, the modifications of the one standard type of loom may be referred to.

In shedding, the tappets may sometimes be placed on a third shaft, driven from the tappet shaft, and termed a twill shaft, because by altering the tappets and the speed the loom may be made available for weaving twills. When the tappets are fixed to the twill shaft they are smaller than those fixed to the tappet shaft.