US575309A - Shed-forming mechanism for looms - Google Patents

Description

(No Model.)

J. RAILTON & G 0. DRAPER. SHED FORMINGMEGHANISM FOR LO'OMS.

No 575,309. v Patented Jan. 12,1897.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES RAILTON, OF NEW BEDFORD, AND GEORGE O. DRAPER, OF HOPE- DALE, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNORS TO GEORGE DRAPER & SONS, OF

HOPEDALE, MASSACHUSETTS.

SHED-FORMING MECHANISM FOR LOOMS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 575,309, dated January 12, 1897.

Application filed September 2,1896. Serial No. 604,597. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, JAMEs RAILTON, a

subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at New Bedford, county of Bristol, and

GEORGE O. DRAPER, of Hopedale, county of Worcester, State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Shed- Forming Mechanism for Looms, of which the following description, in connection with the accompa- IO nying drawings, is a specification, like letters on the drawings representing like parts.

In fancy weaving figures more or less elabcrate are produced by using a greater or less number of harness-frames which are lifted when the warp-threads which those frames control are to appear at the face of the fabric.

Other more elaborate fancy weaves are offected by the usual jacquard where each warpthread is controlled by its own individual harness-cord.

In this our invention we employ harnessbars connected to or carried by suitable frames, which are raised and lowered in any usual order or manner, and these bars or frames have each a series of metallic heddles, composed, preferably, of sheet-steel strips, each heddle having combined with it a locking device which will or will not connect it to and so as to be raised by the bar as it is lifted, such heddles in any one bar which are locked to and lifted by the bar putting their threads in the upper plane of the shed, while the heddles which are not so connected to their rising bars are left down and their warp-threads are not lifted into the upper plane of the shed.

In our invention the looking devices, one

loosely, said locking devices engaging and releasing said heddles at intervals to lift them, according to the requirements of the pattern to be produced in the fabric being woven.

Other features of invention will be hereinafter described and made subject of claims.

Figure 1 of the drawings shows a sufficient portion of a loom with our improvements added to enable our invention to be understood; Fig. 2, a partial rear side elevation of the device shown 'in Fig. '1; Fig. 3, an enlarged detail below the dotted line m, Fig. 2. Fig. 4 is an end view, chiefly to show one of the bars, the shaft carrying the locking de vices, and one way of rotating said shaft.

Each heddle-bar A is shown as connected by suitable screws a to one of a series of like frames a a a a and each of said frames maybe raised and lowered in weaving in any usual or predetermined order and by any usual devices, not necessary to be herein shown because not of the gist of our invention. The loom-frame B may also be of any usual shape, it having arranged acrossit between its sides suitable parallel bars b b,which serve as guides, in which may slide up and down the metallic heddles 0, each heddle having at one edge 7 5 a suitable notch, projection, orshoulder, as c, and a warp-eye c Attached to the loom side are hangers d, which sustain a supporting plate or rest 01, on which may drop those heddles which are not to be lifted to place the warp-threads carried by them into the upper plane of the shed, provided the threads in their eyes should break.

The bars A will for the best results be composed of metal, so shaped as to furnish bearings for the shaft 6, on which will be splined at suitable distances apart a series of locking devices 6, they preferably being separated by a series of collars or washers e The rear side of each bar is provided with 0 a series of projecting fingers e and in the spaces between said fingers we place the heddles c, composed of strips of sheet metal, the notched edges of the heddles lying next the locking devices.

The warp-threads w in the eyes of the hedw-down for four sheds.

dles, in case a heddle is not raised, will lie on the top of the guide-bars b, and the heddles so supported will present their notches c all in a line.

In practice all the bars A will be lowered to the same line after each weft-crossing, and all the heddles will be lowered into such position that their notches 0 will all stand in the same line.

The locking devices consist, as shown, of a series of wheels or disks having a greater or less number of teeth.

In our invention, as herein illustrated, we have fixed on the end of the shaft e a ratchetwheel f, having six teeth, and said shaft has loosely mounted on it a pawl-carrier f, having a pawl f to engage the teeth of the said ratchet, and at each descent of a bar the tail of a pawl-carrier meets a pin or projection f fixed to the frame, which causes the pawlcarrier to be moved and turn the shaft for one-sixth of a rotation.

WVe have accordingly so arranged the teeth on the locking device that one-sixth of a r0- tation of the shaft e will either put a tooth of the locking device into the notch c of a heddle or will take a tooth out from said notch.

hen the locking device has three equallyspaced teeth, the said teeth will enter and engage a notch c at every other rotation of the shaft 6, and when the bar is lifted with a tooth in a notch of the heddle said heddle will be raised with the bar; but if a bar is raised aftera tooth has left a notch c, leaving an untoothed part or space of the locking device opposite the notch c, then that heddle will not be lifted with the bar. So it will be understood that with a three-toothed locking device, (shown at the left in Fig. 1,) the shaft 6 being rotated one-sixth of a rotation before it is lifted, aheddle will be lifted to place the warp carried by it into the upper plane of the shed at every other rising of the bar.

If the locking device has two teeth, one close to the other, as shown in the second locking device from the left in Fig. 1, the heddle will be raised twice in succession and will be left The third locking device from the left has three teeth close together and a fourth tooth with a space at each side, and this will lift the heddle at one shed, leave it down for the next shed, and then lift it for three sheds in succession, and then leave it down for one shed, while the fourth looking device from the left in Fig. 1, it having five teeth and one space, will lift the heddle five times in succession and then leave it down once.

The third locking device from the left, Fig. 1, shows a space next the edge of the heddle, and the heddle was consequently not lifted.

It will thus be seen that by arranging the teeth and spaces on the locking devices in the proper order with relation to its distance of rotation it may be made to lift a heddle any desired number of times in succession, or lift and then leave it down in any desired order; and by arranging these differently-toothed locking devices side by side on the same shaft it is possible to raise or leave down any desired heddle in each bar, and'in this way by merely changing the locking devices on the shafts many different and complicated patterns may be woven.

This invention is not limited to the employment of a shaft rotated at each step for sixty degrees, as the distance which the shaft 6 may be moved and the number of teeth and spaces on each locking device and the order of their arrangement may be varied at will and yet be within the scope of the invention, nor is the invention limited to the exact shape shown for the notch, shoulder, or projection at the edge of the heddle.

A detent m holds the ratchet-wheel f against accidental rotation.

Having described our invention, what we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. In a shedding mechanism for looms, the following instrumentalities, viz: a reciprocable heddle-bar, a shaft carried thereby and provided with a series of locking devices, a series of metallic heddles adapted to slide transversely in said bars, and means to rotate said shaft step by step, said locking devices in one position or step of the shaft acting to lift some of said heddles with said bars, and at another position or step of said shaft acting to leave down said heddles when the bars are raised, substantially as described.

2. In a shedding mechanism for looms, the following instrumentalities, viz: a series of reciprocable heddle bars, shafts mounted thereon, and provided with toothed locking devices, means to rotate said shafts intermittingly, aseries of metallic heddles having warp-eyes and notches or projections, and guides for said heddles, to operate substantially as described.

3. In a shedding mechanism for looms, the following instrumentalities, viz: a series of reciprocable heddle-bars, shafts mounted thereon, and provided with toothed locking devices, the teeth of each series of said looking devices varying in number and location, means to rotate said shafts intermittingly, a series of metallic heddles having warp-eyes and notches or projections, and guides for said heddles, to operate substantially as described.

4. A series of reciprocable heddle-bars, shafts mounted on said bars and provided with toothed lockin g devices, means to rotate said shafts intermittingly at each descent of said bars, a series of notched heddles, and guides for said heddles, combined with a rest located below the ends of said heddles to sup port the same in case the Warp-threads in their eyes break, substantially as described.

5. In a 100110 the followin instrumentalities viz: a series of nietalli heddles having 5 Warp-eyes to contain Warp-threads, means to engage and lift any desired number of hednames to this specification in the presence of two subscribing Witnesses.

\Vitnesses as to James Railton:

lower ends of those heddles of each set which are not engaged and lifted, substantially as 10 described.

In testimony whereof We have signed our DANIEL I-I. HOWLAND. Witnesses as to George 0. Draper:

EARLE E. HOWARD,

D. BANOROFT.

% dies in each set, and a rest to support the GEORGE S. MOTHOM,

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