Practical hand weaving course
Lyon Municipal Weaving SchoolProfessor A.CREPT - Year 1912-1913
The handwritten course has been copied by us.This hand weaving course on looms was used until the 1980s.

Silk Shuttles

The apparatus used to convey the weft yarn in the opening of the warp yarns is referred to as the shuttle and the bobbin is a small weft reel placed in the shuttle, the yarn of which unrolls or scrolls progressively of weaving.
The cans are obtained by the yarn winding intended to form the weft around a tube of variable shape known as a pipe. Formerly the canoeing was done with the spinning wheel, at present it is executed with the aid of machines of different models called canetieres. The cans used in the manufacture of silk fabrics are of two kinds: uncoiling cans and cans.
Uncoiling cans: In the uncoiling cans the pipe is uniformly cylindrical, it rotates on a stationary shaft called a pointisel. The weft yarn is wrapped around the pipe with a low crotch and by a combined movement so that the center of the can is of a diameter stronger than the edges which must be conical. This type of bobbin is hardly used because it does not allow a long length of wire to be wound on the pipe. It is used only in hand looms and generally in hand-operated shuttles.

Cans: In the cans, the hose is not the same shape as the cans to unroll. It is well cylindrical but it is conical at its base and generally ends in a point at its upper part. The wire is wound around the pipe starting from the lower part or the pipe is conical, this is done by means of machines known as punching machines when the cans are formed by a single weft yarn and cushioning ducts when The cans are formed by the union of several weft yarns. The hose is placed on a vertically disposed spindle which receives upward and downward movement as the wire wraps around the hose driven by a movable disc which rises as the can is formed. In some cases the pins are arranged horizontally and are rotated, the guide extends the wire on the pipe by a reciprocating movement and also moves as the bobbin is formed.
In these latter types of machines constructed, it was sought to give a very large cross-section to the threads on the cone of the bobbin and to increase the speed of the spindles in order to obtain a larger production.
All these machines are constructed with automatic stop at the end of the bobbin and jigger ensuring the production and the good manufacture of the cans.
The shuttles are of varying sizes and shapes, and are called under the names of the hunt which throws them, the kind and number of cans they can receive, as well as the peculiarities they present.
Shuttles used in hand looms can be classified as follows:

Hand-operated shuttles for unrolling or scrolling cans.The shuttles said to the button for the shutter to one or more boxes with the button or the whip for cans to be scrolled or unrolled.Shuttles with several cans usually to the button for scrolling or unrolling cans.

Tension of the weft
All the shuttles are equipped with tensioner or conductor of very variable shape, the purpose of which is to oppose the unwinding of the weft and to allow it to be inserted under tension in the crossing of the warp threads.
In the shuttles for unrolling cans this role is entrusted to the axis on which the can is placed, that is to say the pointisel which carries the pins which pressing in the inside of the tube opposes with more or less resistance Unwinding the yarn. Sometimes, when the weft is very large, the pointer is not sufficient, a copper moving plate (called a butterfly), pressed by a spring, must be placed inside the shuttle, this plate pressing on the periphery of the can.
In the shuttles for cans to shift the tensioner is on the outside of the shuttle, it then takes the name of conductor. The conductors are of very different systems and are combined to give a certain tension to the weft yarn and must have a retrograde action as well as a great regularity of action. The choice of a conductor system is made according to the tension to be given to the weft thread, the nature, the size and the number of wires which compose it, and the type of fabric to be executed.