In these and subsequent operations the Barber Knotter, a little device worn on the hand of the operative, has enormously increased efficiency. By a single motion an entirely unskilled girl can knot and cut off evenly the ends of two threads.
3. Weaving Gray Goods
Principle of Weaving
The modern power loom represents one of the most remarkable achievements of industrial development. Into its perfection have gone the inventions and improvements of centuries, and volumes could, and have been written on the subject of modern weaving. Nevertheless, the old-fashioned hand-loom has not yet gone out of existence, and still finds its use in the development of new designs.
Spooling
Weaving is, of course, the process whereby yarn is made into cloth, and its fundamental principle is that of the warp and weft structure. In its simplest form this means that a series of threads are stretched parallel to each other, thereby forming a warp. A second thread, called the weft, is then passed over the odd and under the even warp threads, and back again under the odd and over the even. In this way a cloth fabric will gradually be built up. In most cases the process has become considerably more complicated than this, but there are even now certain materials, such as calico, which retain the elementary weave. The actual weaving, that is, the passing of the shuttle carrying the weft thread over and under the warp threads, has now been reduced to an entirely automatic process, even with the most complicated designs, but the preparatory work still entails a large proportion of hand labor.
The Creels
Spooling