724 



C H A I N W O R K. 



Hosiery- 

 Work. 



Rib stock- 

 ing frame. 



PLAT* 

 CXXXVIU, 



Fifr, 5. 



must be included. Owing to this, the needles, un- 

 less cautiously and delicately handled, are easily bent 

 or injured. The same circumstance applies with 

 equal or greater force to the sinkers, which must be 

 so very thin as to be easily injured. But as these 

 must work freely, both in a perpendicular and hori- 

 zontal direction between the needles, in a very con- 

 fined and limited space, the slightest variation in 

 either, from being truly and squarely placed, unavoid- 

 ably injures the others. When a hosier, either igno- 

 rant of the mechanical laws of their relation to each 

 other, or too impatient to wait for the assistance of 

 another, attempts to rectify defects, he in most cases 

 increases them tenfold, and renders the machine incapa- 

 ble of working at all, until repaired by some more ex- 

 perienced person. This circumstance has given rise to 

 a set of men employed in this trade, and distinguished 

 by the name of upsetters ; and these people, besides 

 setting new frames to work, have frequently more 

 employment in repairing old ones injured by want of 

 care or skill, than many country apothecaries., who 

 live in healthy parishes, can find in curing the disor- 

 ders of mankind. 



It seems unnecessary to go further into detail re- 

 specting a machine so well known, and which re- 

 quires practical attention, even more than most others. 

 It may therefore be sufficient to describe shortly 

 some of its varieties, the most simple and common of 

 which is the rib stocking frame. 



Rib Stocking Frame. 



This frame, which, next to the common frame, is 

 most extensively in use, is employed for working 

 those striped or ribbed stockings, which are very 

 common in all the different materials of which hosiery 

 is formed. In principle it does not differ from the 

 common frame, and not greatly in construction. The 

 former general description will nearly apply to this 

 machine with equal propriety as to the former: that 

 part, however, by which the ribs or stripes are form- 

 ed, is entirely an addition, and to the application of 

 this additional machinery it may be proper to pay 

 the chief attention, referring chiefly to Fig. 5, which 

 is a front elevation. 



This Figure has been already frequently referred 

 to for the illustration of those parts of the machinery 

 which are common to both, and those parts there- 

 fore require no recapitulation. The principle of 

 weaving ribbed hosiery possesses considerable affinity 

 to that which subsists in the weaving of that kind of 

 cloth, which is distinguished by the name of tweel- 

 ing, for the formation of stripes, with some variation 

 arising merely from the different nature of the fabric. 

 In cloth weaving,two different kinds ofyarn, intersect- 

 ing each other at right angles, are employed ; in hosiery 

 only one is used. In the tweeling of cloth, striped as 

 dimity, in the cotton or kerseymere, in the woollen 

 manufacture, the stripes are produced by reversing 

 these yarns. In hosiery, where only one kind of 

 yarn is used, a similar effect is produced by reversing 

 the loops. To effect this reversing of the loops, a 

 second set of needles is placed upon a vertical frame, 

 so that the bends of the ho>.ks may be nearly under 

 those of the common needles. These needles are 

 cast into tin moulds, pretty similar to the former, 

 but more oblique or bevelled towards the point, to 

 prevent obstructions in working them. They are also 

 screwed to a bar of iron, generally lighter than the 



Hosiery 

 Work. 



other, and secured by means of plates: this bar is 

 not fixed, but has a pivot in each end, by means of 

 which the bar may have a kind of oscillatory motion ~" Y ~ 

 on these pivots. Two frames of iren support this 

 bar; that in which it oscillates being ne irly verti- PLATE 

 cal, but inclined a little towards the other needles, rxxxvur.. 

 Fig. 9, which is a profile elevation, will serve to Fig. 9. 

 illustrate the relative position of each bar to the 

 other. The lower, or horizontal frame, the ends 

 only of which can be seen in Fig. 5, under a a, 

 appears in profile in Fig. 9, where it is distinguish- 

 ed by d. The vertical frame at a is attached to 

 this by two centre screws, which serve aa joints for it 

 to move in. On the top of this frame is the rib- 

 needle bar at^in Figs. 1 and 9, and one needle is re- 

 presented in Fig. 9, at f. At g is a small presser, 

 to shut the barbs of the r<b needles, in the same man- 

 ner as the large one does those of the frame. At /* 

 is one of the frame needles, to show the relative po- 

 sition of the one set to the other. The whole of the 

 rib-bar is not filled with needles like the other ; for 

 here needles are only placed where ribs or stripes are 

 to be formed, the intervals being filled up with blank 

 leads, that is to say, with sockets of the same shape 

 as the others, but without needles, being merely de- 

 signed to fill the bar and preserve the intervals. Two 

 small handles depend from the needle bar, by which 

 the oscillatory motion upon the upper centres is given. 

 The rising and sinking motion is communicated to 

 this machine by chains, which are attached to iron 

 sliders below, and which are wrought by the hosier's 

 heel when necessary. The pressure taken place part- 

 ly by the action of the small presser, and partly by 

 the motion of the needles in descending. A small 

 iron slider is placed behind the rib-needles, which 

 rises as they descend, and serves to free the loops 

 perfectly from each other. 



In the weaving of ribbed hosiery, the plain and rib 

 courses are wrought alternately. When the plain is 

 finished, the rib- needles are raised between the others, 

 but no additional stuff is supplied. The rib-needles 

 intersecting the plain ones, merely lay hold of the 

 last thread, and by again bringing it through that 

 which was on the rib needle before, give it an addi- 

 tional looping, which reverses the line of chaining, 

 and raises the rib above the plain intervals, which 

 have only received a single knitting. 



Plated Stocking Frame. 



The next description of stocking frame to which plated 

 we would draw the attention of the reader, is that stocking 

 used for the manufacture of a cheap and showy de- 

 scription of stockings, whose fabric chiefly consists 

 of cotton, but in which silk is so artfully inter- 

 mixed aa to give them an appearance when new, near- 

 ly, if not altogether, equal to those which are com- 

 posed entirely of silk, although, after being exposed 

 to repeated washings, this deception almost entirely 

 disappears, from the swelling of the cotton, which 

 forms the chief part of the fabric. The chief points 

 of difference in this frame consists in the way of 

 shutting or rather covering the barbs of the needles, 

 in ordrr to form the chaining. Of this variety some 

 idea may be formed, by referring to Fig. 10. This Fl E- 

 Figure is a horizontal plan of the needles, and that 

 part of the apparatus which supersedes the use of 

 the presser, and in some respects fits the franv- for 

 purposes to which the presser is not well adapted. 





