The Hand Loom; Most popular weaving machine in the world

-->

The Hand Loom 

As with spinning, the principles of weaving are easily understood by reviewing the operations performed in hand weaving with hand loom. Many weavers continue to practice this craft. Weaving with hand loom requires that the warp yarns be held under tension. Having stretched out one set of yarns, the weaver then takes a second yarn and interlaces it with the warps. The simplest interlacing is made by moving the filling over the first warp, under the second, over the third, and under the fourth, and so on. In the second row, the filling moves under the first warp, over the second, under the third, and so on. The third row repeats the pattern of the first, and the fourth row repeats the pattern of the second row. Known as a plain weave or tabby, this is the simplest form of weaving. 

The filling yarns in hand loom, those running at right angles to the warps, can be introduced by hand. As the weaving process developed, weavers found it was easier either to use some device such as a needle, or to wrap the yarns around a stick. This latter method had the advantage of allowing the yarn to be unwound as the stick was moved through the warps. Ultimately, yarn was wound onto a bobbin, and the bobbin was placed into a boatlike shuttle. The pointed end of the shuttle allowed the carrier to move smoothly, while the bobbin allowed the yarn to unwind as it was needed.Filling yarns tended to be somewhat loose in placement and had to be pushed into place more firmly. The earliest weavers painstakingly pushed each yarn into place with a small stick. A later, more efficient method used a wooden stick, shaped like a sword that was slipped behind the filling yarns and pushed them tightly against the fabric that had already been woven. This weaver’s sword, or batten, became a permanent part of the loom, although its shape was transformed gradually into a comb-like device called a reed that was mounted on a frame. The frame retained the name batten, and a pull of the hand on the batten frame moved the reed forward, swinging the reed against the filling yarn and pushing it (beating up”) firmly into place. 

At first the finished cloth was probably the same dimensions as the hand loom, but Egyptian fabrics of long dimensions have been found, and it is possible that they may have used a roller beam system. A beam with warp yarns wrapped around it allowed yarns to be fed continuously to the” weaver, and as the fabric was woven, it was wrapped around a roller at the other end of the loom. In this way continuous lengths of fabric, longer than the loom, could be constructed. 

As long as each warp yarn had to be raised by hand before the filling was interlaced with it, the process of weaving remained slow and tedious. Inventive weavers improvised a means of speeding up the procedure of raising and lowering warp yarns. Alternate rows of warps were placed over a shed rod, a stick that lifted them above the level of their neighboring yarns. This formation of raised and lowered warp yarns is called the shed the bobbin could be thrust across the entire width of the cloth through the shed without stopping to raise each individual warp yarn. The alternate set of warp yarns was threaded through a series of string loops that were tied to another rod. This rod could raise the second set of yarns past those on the shed rod. By thrusting the bobbin under this second set of yarns that had been raised by an upward pull on the rod, the filling interlaced with an alternate set of yarns. Alternate raising and lowering of the rod made it possible to interlace warp and filling yarns quickly and efficiently. The rod that held the second set of warps was called a harness; the loops were called heddles. Variety in weave could be achieved through the use of multiple harnesses, each raising a different set of warps. 

The widespread use of silk probably brought about certain improvements in hand loom structure. Since silk filament yarns were fine and slippery, use of the shed rods made weaving more difficult. In silk weaving, the shed rod was replaced by a second harness with heddles, as the smooth, fine yarns tended to slide against the shed rod, while the heddles held them securely. The change from hand manipulation of harnesses to operation by foot treadle was another improvement. The hand loom was constructed so that pressure on a foot treadle raised and lowered the harness frame. This released the hand to operate the shuttle and the batten and increased the speed with which the weaver could work. 

Probably the single most important invention that preceded automation of the hand loom was the flying shuttle. The flying shuttle, designed by John Kay and patented in 1733, was a device with a spring mechanism that threw the shuttle across the loom from one side to the other. In hand weaving, Kay’s device was activated by a cord on either side of the loom that was pulled by the weaver. When the machine was mechanized, the flying shuttle was incorporated into the loom and operated mechanically. 

Following Figure depicts the basic handloom that had developed by the time of the Industrial Revolution. Handlooms used by weavers today have the same type of structure.

-->