CIRCULAR-BOX LOOMS.
These are not used in the cotton trade to anything like the extent they are in the woollen and worsted trades, especially in Yorkshire. It is remarkable that this should be the case, as it is claimed for circular boxes that they can be run at a higher speed than any other kind. Circular boxes are usually made for six shuttles, generally to move only one box at a time, but they are made to skip one box, although the arrangement is by no means so simple or satisfactory as in a well-made loom on Whitesmith’s principle, where the changes are made from one box to another almost noiselessly. At Fig. 81 the mechanism of a circular-box motion is shown. There are two hooks, A and B, which act upon pins outside the boxes. When the hook A is pulled down the boxes will be turned one to the right, and when B is pulled down they are turned one to the left. A lever, EF, is connected with the lower part of each hook, and another lever, M, is lifted every two picks by means of a cam, C. The cards lift or drop the L lever QS at S, and so the hook H can either be lifted or left down by the lifter M, and the boxes can be turned one in either direction. A disadvantage of circular boxes is that they cannot be used in fast-reed looms on account of the difficulty of operating the stop rod from the back of the boxes. They are therefore only used for weaving the lighter classes of fabrics.