Power Loom
The Power Loom and in the German translation Kraftstuhl was the name of the loom invented by Edmond Cartwright in 1784 with a drive by a power machine . The Power Loom was the first steam-powered loom and the first automatic loom for wide fabrics. It was a shuttle loom: the shuttle was reinforced at its ends and was henceforth called Schützen . The principle, however, was the same as with the hand looms; it was rather a further development of the high-speed shuttle loom that John Kay had invented in 1733 .
The raising and lowering of the warp threads to open a shed , the movement of the shooter and the beating of the weft thread with the reed were now carried out using eccentrics and cams . While the reed in the hand loom was hanging on a hanger - called a drawer - the reed, the shafts and the guard of the Power Loom were driven centrally from below .
After the spinning mill was already largely automated, the weaving also had to be automated. However, the Power Loom did not spread as quickly as the Spinning Jenny or the Spinning Mule . Society, and especially the weaving part of it, rightly feared that the automation of the supreme discipline in textile production would make their jobs superfluous. The first industrial weaving mills then fell victim to the machine storm, and John Kay was almost murdered. It was not until the first half of the 19th century that weaving machines gained acceptance, after their productivity was multiplied compared to the first Power Loom and the processes in the weaving preparation were also rationalized.
Power Loom was a synonym for loom in the English language until a few decades ago. Today it is only occasionally used in Asia to the west we speak now in looms of weaving machine or loom .
literature
- William Radcliffe: Origin of the new system of manufacture, commonly called "power-loom weaving" and the purposes for which this system was invented and brought into use, fully explained in a narrative, containing William Radcliffe's struggles through life to remove the cause which has brought this country to its present crisis / written by himself ... , Stockport, Lomax, 1828
- Friedrich Georg Wieck: "The Book of Inventions: Trade and Industries", Volume 2, Part 1. Otto Spamer, Leipzig, 1862, p. 205.