Vaucanson's Automatic Loom
Métier à tisser les étoffes façonnées de Vaucanson.T the brilliant French inventor and engineer Jacques de Vaucanson designed a loom intended to partially automate the work of the drawman and the weaver. The mechanism, the shuttle and the beater were driven by cams while the fabric was regularly wound on.
The photographs show a reconstruction of the machine displayed at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris. See also Museum webpage here.
The date is widely given as 1745-48. However, one authoritative source [1] shows a drawing of the basic loom, described as a mechanical loom for taffeta built in 1744, and implies that draw mechanism with the perforated drum dates from 1775.
It is not clear how much of the machine is original.
The museum also have a scale model of the loom, made by Jean Marin in 1855. It is not on display, Photo here. Museum's listing here. A minor difference is evident in the arrangement of the hand crank gearing, which comprises an iron pinion engaging with a larger 'lantern' wheel, with a reduction ratio of 1:2. The full size example differs in having two pairs of bevel gears, and having a greater reduction ratio.
The machine was illustrated and described in detail in the Bulletin de la Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale in 1853.[2]
The machine did not find commercial application. Presumably it was not intended to. Rather, to demonstrate the possibilities. All the operations were powered by a single hand crank. There was much to go out of adjustment, to wear, to come loose, and to break.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ 'A History of Technology and Invention', edited by Maurice Daumas, translated from French by Eileen B. Hennessy: Chapter on Weaving and Mechanical Finishing by Jacques Payen and Jean Pilisi
- ↑ [1] Bulletin de la Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, 1853. 52e année. N. 583-594, p.721ff