Since this was written the machine has been altered so as to make it more suitable to the requirements of the work in this country, but does not appear to gain favour, and this class of weaving is not very extensively used.
CHAPTER VII
GAUZE
The principle of weaving gauze with shafts and healds applies equally to making it with a harness, though perhaps the latter is simpler, as there is not the same trouble in the arranging of drafts; and, in intricate work, the number of doup leaves required for shaft mountings adds considerably to the trouble of the weaver and tackler.
The simplest, or in any case the most ready, method of weaving gauze in a harness, is to use an ordinary harness, and form the gauze by means of one or more doups and standards in front of it. Suppose we have have a 400 machine with the harness tied up in simple repeats of 400; any desired pattern can be put upon the cloth to the extent of 400 hooks of the jacquard as in ordinary harness work, but it cannot be made of any texture desired—it must be made to suit the working of the doups in front of the harness. If the open work is to be a plain gauze with one shot into each shed, then the pattern must be plain cloth, as the doup standard must be raised and sunk alternately for each shot; but any desired form or figure can be made in plain texture on the 400 hooks, and the cloth will consist of a plain figure on a gauze ground; or it might as well be a gauze figure on a plain ground.
Those not acquainted with figured gauze work, have considerable difficulty in understanding how to make plain or gauze as required on the cloth.
It is easy to understand that working the harness without the doups can make plain cloth, and also that working the doups and standards, and portion of the harness, for alternate shots, can make gauze; but the difficulty is to thoroughly comprehend how, when working gauze, to neutralise the crossing of that portion of the warp that is to form the plain figure. There are two ways of neutralising the crossing effect of the doups on any thread or number of threads that may be required for the figure: first, by not raising the mail or mails carrying the crossing threads, or threads in the doups, but forming the plain by raising the mails carrying the threads not in the doups, alternately with the doup standard; and, secondly, if the threads not in the doups are raised along with the doup standard, no crossing can take place; but this would not suit for working plain cloth, as these mails must be down when the doup standard is up in order to form plain cloth.
