Instead of being thrown by hand, the shuttle is introduced into a sort of box (shuttle box) placed at each end of the hand slay and a little longer than the shuttle itself. A wooden picker (rat) with a leather buckle for receiving the tip of the shuttle and returning it slides longitudinally along the upper part of the shuttle box. The cleat is attached on its upper side to a cord that extends to the picker of the other shuttle box. In the center of this cord is knotted another string cord at the other end of the button, kind of small handful of pear-shaped wood. This cord passes over a pulley fixed to the lade slay in its upper part. By pulling the button abruptly, the weaver manages to launch his shuttle regularly from one box to the other along the hand slay and his reed. The picker resumes its place naturally under the push of the shuttle that enters the box, and is thus ready to transmit again for another journey of the shuttle in the opposite direction.
It is curved so that in the curved movement it describes, under the impulse of the hands of the weaver, it can not strike with the points, the pins of the reed, which would be a cause of deterioration. And so that it is always the convex part that works against the reed. This curve, moreover, has the advantage of facilitating the work of the weaver, who more readily receives with one hand the shuttle thrown from the other, owing to the tendency which it has to depart from the shed, leaving the edges of the reed.
2- The flying shuttle, also known as straight shuttle,is launched by a mechanism called shuttle box.
There are many kinds of shuttles appropriate to the various kinds of looms, we shall retain two main ones:
The curved shuttle, called "by hand", and the flying shuttle, which is straight.
These two kinds of shuttles are each provided at their end with a conical part made of iron or steel, screwed or firmly embedded in the wood and perfectly integral with it, so that the weft thread can not encounter any obstacles of a nature to retain it in its course.
1- The curved shuttle called by handbecause it is thrown into the hand directly by the workman,without the latter being helped by any mechanism.
The Lyon shuttles
Each material, each type of fabric requires a shuttle adapted in size, weight, shape or sometimes a special one. Here are some of these shuttles.