The Flying Shuttle (Edited from Wikipedia)

SUMMARY

The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It allowed a single weaver to weave much wider fabrics, and it could be mechanized, allowing for automatic machine looms. The flying shuttle was patented by John Kay (1704–c. 1779) in 1733.

HISTORY

John Kay (17 June 1704 – c. 1779) was the inventor of the flying shuttle, which was a key contribution to the Industrial Revolution.

John Kay was born on 17 June 1704 in England. His farmer father, Robert, owned an estate, and John was born there. Robert died before John was born, leaving his “Park House” to his eldest son. As Robert's fifth son (out of ten children), John was left 40 pounds (at age 21) and an education until the age of 14. His mother was responsible for educating him until she remarried.

He apprenticed with a hand-loom reed maker, but is said to have returned home within a month claiming to have mastered the business. He designed a metal substitute for the natural reed (used on looms) that proved popular enough for him to sell throughout England. After traveling the country, making and fitting wire reeds, he returned home to Bury, in June of 1725.

In Bury he continued to design improvements to textile machinery; in 1730 he patented a cording and twisting machine for high-quality wool yarn.

In 1733, he received a patent for his most revolutionary device: a "wheeled shuttle" for the hand loom. It greatly accelerated weaving, by allowing the shuttle carrying the yarn to be passed through the warp threads faster and over a greater width of cloth. It was designed for the broad loom, for which it saved labor over the traditional process, needing only one operator per loom (before Kay's improvements a second worker was needed to catch the shuttle).

1 Kay always called this invention a "wheeled shuttle", but others used the name "fly- shuttle" (and later, "flying shuttle") because of its continuous speed, especially when a young worker was using it in a narrow loom.

In July 1733, Kay formed a partnership to begin fly-shuttle manufacturing. No industrial unrest was anticipated, this being the first device of the modern era to significantly enhance productivity. But by September 1733 the weavers, were so concerned for their livelihoods that they petitioned the King to stop Kay's inventions.

The flying shuttle created a supply-and-demand imbalance by doubling weaving productivity without changing the rate at which thread could be spun, disrupting spinners and weavers alike.

Kay tried to promote the fly-shuttle in Bury, but could not convince the woolen manufacturers that it was sufficiently robust; he spent the next two years improving the technology, until it had several advantages over the device specified in the 1733 patent. (This was to be one of his difficulties in the coming patent disputes.)

In 1738 Kay went to Leeds, where his problem had become royalty collection. (The annual license fee was 15 Shillings per shuttle.) He continued to invent, patenting some machines in the same year, though these were not taken up industrially.

The Shuttle Club

Kay (and, initially, his partners) launched numerous patent infringement lawsuits, but if any of these cases were successful, compensation was below the cost of prosecution. Rather than give in to Kay’s lawsuits, the manufacturers formed "the Shuttle Club", a syndicate which paid the costs of any member brought to court; their strategy of patent piracy and mutual support nearly bankrupted Kay.

In 1745, he and Joseph Stell patented a machine for cloth ribbon weaving, which they anticipated might be worked by water wheel, but they were unable to advance their plans because of Kay's legal costs. Impoverished and harassed, Kay was compelled to leave Leeds, and he returned to Bury. Also in 1745, John's twelfth (and final) child, William, was born.

Kay remained inventive; in 1746 he was working on an efficient method of salt production, and designing improvements to spinning technology – but that made him unpopular among Bury spinners. Also, fly-shuttle use was becoming widespread in weaving, increasing cotton yarn demand and its price – and Kay was blamed.

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HOW IT WORKS

In a typical frame loom, used before the invention of the flying shuttle, the operator sat with the newly woven cloth before him or her, using some mechanism to raise and lower the heddles, which are wires with loops in them that the threads pass through. The operator then had to reach forward while holding the shuttle in one hand and pass this through the “shed.” The shed is the name given to the temporary separation of the upper and lower yarns which the shuttle passes through, like a tunnel of fabric.

The shuttle then had to be caught in the other hand, the shed closed, and the weft pushed into place. The “weft” is the name for the thread which you push and pull through the fabric using the shuttle.

This action (called a "pick") required regularly bending forward over the fabric; more importantly, however, the coordination between the throwing and catching of the shuttle required multiple operators if the width of the fabric exceeds that which can be reasonably reached across (typically 60 inches (150 cm) or less).

This was a manual process which required a lot of human skill.

The flying shuttle employs a board, called the "race," which runs along the front of the loom, from side to side, forming a track on which the shuttle runs. At each end of the race, there is a box which catches the shuttle at the end of its journey, and which contains a mechanism for propelling the shuttle on its return trip.

The weaver flicked a cord which threw the flying shuttle down and back in a moment.

The increase in production due to the flying shuttle exceeded the capacity of the spinning industry of the day. This prompted development of powered spinning machines, beginning with the spinning jenny and the waterframe, and culminating in the spinning mule, which could produce strong, fine thread in the quantities needed.

These innovations transformed the textile industry in Great Britain. All were attacked as threats to the livelihood of spinners and weavers, and Kay's patent was largely ignored.

The flying shuttle itself produced a new source of injuries; if deflected from its path, it could be shot clear of the machine, potentially striking workers. Turn of the century injury reports abound with instances in which eyes were lost or other injuries sustained and, in several instances (for example, an extended exchange in 1901), the British House

3 of Commons was moved to take up the issue of installing guards and other contrivances to reduce these injuries.

The flying shuttle dominated commercial weaving through the middle of the twentieth century. By that time, other systems had begun to replace it.

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