Power loom


A power loom is a mechanized loom that automates the weaving of cloth through leveraging mechanical power. It interlaces warp and weft threads via mechanisms like cams, gears, levers, and pulleys, replicating motions previously done manually. The mechanization of weaving dramatically increased production efficiency, contributing to the rise of large-scale textile factories during the Industrial Revolution.
Though the idea is older and experimentation predates him, Edmund Cartwright is credited with initiating power loom development with his 1785 patent. His initial versions were rudimentary but they pioneered automated weaving and laid the groundwork for factory-based production. By the early 19th century, improvements had made power looms reliable and widely adopted across Europe and North America, ushering in a new era of textile manufacturing. Cartwright’s invention marked the beginning of mechanized weaving, drastically reducing reliance on skilled handweavers.

Shuttle looms

The main components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses, shuttle, reed, and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations.
  • Shedding. Shedding is the raising of the warp yarns to form a loop through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted. The shed is the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.
  • Picking. As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.
  • Battening. As the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, it also passes through openings in another frame called a reed. With each picking operation, the reed presses or battens each filling yarn against the portion of the fabric that has already been formed. The point where the fabric is formed is called the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 200 picks per minute
With each weaving operation, the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a filling stop motion which will brake the loom, if the weft thread breaks.

Operation

Operation of weaving in a textile mill is undertaken by a specially trained operator known as a weaver. Weavers are expected to uphold high industry standards and are tasked with monitoring anywhere from ten to as many as thirty separate looms at any one time. During their operating shift, weavers will first utilize a wax pencil or crayon to sign their initials onto the cloth to mark a shift change, and then walk along the cloth side of the looms they tend, gently touching the fabric as it comes from the reed. This is done to feel for any broken "picks" or filler thread. Should broken picks be detected, the weaver will disable the machine and undertake to correct the error, typically by replacing the bobbin of filler thread in as little time as possible. They are trained that, ideally, no machine should stop working for more than one minute, with faster turnaround times being preferred.
Operation of this needs more than 2 people because of the way it works.

History

The first ideas for an automatic loom had been developed in 1684 by M. de Gennes in Paris and by Vaucanson in 1745, but were forgotten. In 1785, Edmund Cartwright patented an early power loom, which was initially hand-operated and mechanically crude. By 1787 he had developed improved versions driven by water power, and soon after he had coupled looms to steam power, marking an important step toward fully mechanized weaving. His ideas were licensed first by Grimshaw of Manchester who built a small steam-powered weaving factory in Manchester in 1790, but the factory burnt down. Cartwright's was not a commercially successful machine; his looms had to be stopped to dress the warp. Over the next decades, Cartwright's ideas were modified into a reliable automatic loom. These designs followed John Kay's invention of the flying shuttle, and they passed the shuttle through the shed using levers. With the increased speed of weaving, weavers were able to use more thread than spinners could produce.

Series of initial inventors

A series of inventors incrementally improved all aspects of the three principal processes and the ancillary processes.
  • Grimshaw of Manchester : dressing the warp
  • Austin : dressing the warp, 200 looms produced for Monteith of Pollockshaws 1800
  • Thomas Johnson of Bredbury : dressing frame, factory for 200 steam looms in Manchester in 1806, and two factories at Stockport in 1809. One at Westhoughton, Lancashire.
  • William Radcliffe of Stockport : improved take up mechanism
  • John Todd of Burnley : a heald roller and new shedding arrangements, the healds were corded to treadles actuated by cams on the second shaft.
  • William Horrocks of Stockport : The frame was still wooden but the lathe was pendant from the frame and operated by cams on the first shaft, the shedding was operated by cams on the second shaft, the take up motion was copied from Radcliffe.
  • Joseph Marie Jacquard : invented the Jacquard loom, which used punched cards to automatically control warp threads, enabling complex patterned weaving on power looms.
  • Peter Marsland : improvements to the lathe motion to counteract poor picking
  • William Cotton : improvements to the letting off motion
  • William Horrocks : Horrocks loom, modifications to the lathe motion, improving on Marsland
  • Peter Ewart : a use of pneumatics
  • Joseph and Peter Taylor : double beat foot lathe for heavy cloths
  • Paul Moody : produces the first power loom in North America. Exporting a UK loom would have been illegal.
  • John Capron and Sons : installed the first power looms for woolens in North America at Uxbridge, Massachusetts.
  • William Horrocks : a system to wet the warp and weft during use, improving the effectiveness of the sizing
  • Richard Roberts : Roberts Loom, These improvements were a geared take up wheel and tappets to operate multiple heddles
  • Stanford, Pritchard and Wilkinson: patented a method to stop on the break of weft or warp. It was not used.
  • William Dickinson of Blackburn: Blackburn Loom, the modern overpick

    Further useful improvements

There now appear a series of useful improvements that further mechanized the power loom:
  • Hornby, Kenworthy and Bullough of Blackburn : the vibrating or fly reed
  • John Ramsbottom and Richard Holt of Todmorden : a new automatic weft stopping motion
  • James Bullough of Blackburn : improved automatic weft stopping motion and taking up and letting off arrangements
  • Andrew Parkinson : improved stretcher.
  • William Kenworthy and James Bullough : trough and roller temple, A simple stop-motion.
  • The Lancashire Loom : developed by Kenworthy and Bullough into a robust, semi-automatic loom system that became the dominant standard throughout the following decades, enabling one worker to tend four or more looms simultaneously.
At this point the loom had become automatic except for refilling weft pirns. The Cartwright loom weaver could work one loom at 120-130 picks per minute—with a Kenworthy and Bullough's Lancashire Loom, a weaver can run four or more looms working at 220-260 picks per minute—thus giving eight times more throughput.
  • James Henry Northrop invented a self-threading shuttle and shuttle spring jaws to hold a bobbin by means of rings on the butt. This paved the way to his automatic filling and changing battery of 1891, the basic feature of the Northrop Loom. The principal advantage of the Northrop loom was that it was fully automatic; when a warp thread broke, the loom stopped until it was fixed. When the shuttle ran out of thread, Northrop's mechanism ejected the depleted pirn and loaded a new full one without stopping. A loom operative could work 16 or more looms whereas previously they could only operate eight. Thus, the labor cost was halved. Mill owners had to decide whether the labor saving was worth the capital investment in a new loom. In all 700,000 looms were sold. By 1914, Northrop looms made up 40% of American looms. Northrop was responsible for several hundred weaving related patents.
  • George Hattersley and Sons : the Hattersley Standard Loom — a robust, well-engineered “standard model” loom that sold in the thousands and became widely used looms for worsted, woollen and mixed-fiber weaving.
  • Sakichi Toyoda unveiled the Type G automatic loom which combined a high-speed, non-stop shuttle change with integrated stop-motions and safety devices. This loom achieved the world's highest productivity and textile quality at the time, allowing workers to operate 30 to 50 looms simultaneously and was later licensed internationally, including to the Platt Brothers in the United Kingdom.