A very similar kind of warp can be made more quickly, and often better, on what is termed the linking machine mentioned in No. 2 method. Such a machine is illustrated in Fig. 28, and the full equipment demands the following four distinct kinds of apparatus—a bank capable of holding approximately 300 spools, a frame for forming the weaver’s lease and the beamer’s lease, machine for drawing the threads from the spools in the bank and for measuring the length and marking the warp at predetermined intervals, and finally the actual machine which links the group of threads in the form of a chain.
In Fig. 28 part of the large bank, with a few rows of spools, is shown in the extreme background. The two sets of threads, from the two wings of the bank, are seen distinctly, and the machine or frame immediately in front of the bank is where the two kinds of lease are made when desired, i.e. at the beginning and at the end of the warp. Between this leasing frame and the linking machine proper, shown in the foreground, is the drawing, measuring and marking machine. Only part of this machine is seen—the driving pulleys and part of the frame adjoining them. All these frames and machines are necessary, but the movements embodied in them, or the functions which they perform, are really subsidiary to those of the linker shown in the foreground of Fig. 28.
[Illustration: FIG. 28 POWER CHAIN OF WARP LINKING MACHINE]
Although the linking machine is composed of only a few parts, it is a highly-ingenious combination of mechanical parts; these parts convert the straight running group of 300 threads into a linked chain, and the latter is shown distinctly descending from the chute on to the floor in the figure. Precisely the same kind of link is made by the hand wrappers when the warps indicated in Fig. 27 are being withdrawn from the mills. Two completed chains are shown tied up in Fig. 28, and a stock of rolls or spools appear against the wall near the bank.