FIG. 14.
In beam warping bobbins are placed in a creel. This is a frame constructed to hold from 400 to 500 bobbins, and is the shape of the letter V, as this is the most convenient and easiest for unwinding. The 400 to 500 threads, A, are taken through an expanding reed, B (Figs. [12], [13], and [14]). The ends are then passed over a tin measuring roller, D, and under tension-rollers, 15 and 18, which keep the yarn taut, and also pull it back when it is required to turn backward to find a broken thread, or otherwise. Each thread is then passed separately underneath a small bent wire drop-pin, 22. Each thread bears the weight of one of these wires, and should the thread break when the machine is in motion, the wire falls between two rollers, 3 and 4, which latter is mounted so that a wire causes it to move forward and, by releasing a “trigger” motion at Q, as it is called, the machine is automatically stopped. This is the principle of Singleton’s stop-motion, which is the one most commonly used. In front of the stop-motion wires the yarn is passed through an expanding comb, 23, which regulates the width of the slashers’ or “back” beam, 26. This beam is driven by friction; the beam rests on a drum, V, and as the drum revolves, the beam is driven in such a manner that yarn is wound at a uniform pace throughout, although the beam is gradually increasing in diameter. One of these machines will supply about 80 to 90 looms weaving medium counts of yarn. The creel is usually made to hold 504 bobbins, but any lesser number of ends may be put on a beam.
After leaving the warping machine the beams are taken to the slashing frame, where a sufficient number of beams are put together to form the warp for the loom.
Mill warping.—This system of warping is still in use for warps used in the Bradford mixed goods trade, and for many classes of coloured cotton goods in Lancashire, although slashed warps are fast superseding the system for the former trade, and sectional warping is replacing the system for the coloured trade. Mill warping is also in general use in silk manufacture. Those spinners who supply warps to Yorkshire worsted manufacturers have usually supplied them in the ball, unsized. The warps are “mill” warped, and the manufacturer has them sized to his own orders by cotton warp sizers, who usually combine this business with dyeing and finishing in the Bradford district. Slashed warps are now being used in the Bradford trade to a considerable extent, the warps being in most cases slashed in Lancashire and sent on beams.
FIG. 15.
A warping mill consists of a large reel, Z (Figs. [15] and [16]), of from six to twenty yards circumference, which is made to revolve. This reel is fixed upright in suitable framework, and the warper’s bobbins, W, are placed in a creel, V, by the side of the reel. The ends are taken from the bobbins, and drawn separately through the eyes of a row of needles, T, which constitute what is termed a “heck.” This heck is so constructed that one-half of the eyes can be raised above the other half, to form a lease. The heck slides up and down the framework Y of the mill, and thus forms a traverse and distributes the warp as the reel revolves. At the commencement of a warp, the bunch of ends is taken from the “heck” and fastened to a peg, 6, at the bottom of the reel. As the reel revolves the heck slowly rises, and so causes the warp to be wound on the reel spirally, without overlapping. The heck is moved up and down a sufficient number of times to give the required number of ends in the warp, when the warp is cut off and unwound, and made up either in the form of a ball or a chain. The length of a warp is determined by the number of revolutions made by the mill from the commencement, until it is reversed at the other extremity.
FIG. 16.