The usual way in machines for dressing jute yarns is to drive the beam support and the beam by means of friction plates.  A certain amount of slip is always taking place—­the drive is designed for this purpose—­and the friction plates are adjusted by the yarn dresser during the operation of dressing to enable them to draw forward the beam, and to slip in infinitesimal sections, so that the yarn is drawn forward continuously and at uniform speed.

During the operation, the measuring roller and its subsequent train of wheels and shafts indicates the length of yarn which has passed over, also the number of “cuts” or “pieces” of any desired length; in addition, part of the measuring and marking mechanism uses an ink-pad to mark the yarn at the end of each cut, such mark to act as a guide for the weaver, and to indicate the length of warp which has been woven.  Thus if the above warp were intended to be five cuts, each 120 yards, or 600 yards in all, the above apparatus would measure and indicate the yards and cuts, and would introduce a mark at intervals of 120 yards on some of the threads.  And all this is done without stopping the machine.  At the time of marking, or immediately before or after, just as desired, a bell is made to ring automatically so that the attendant is warned when the mark on the warp is about to approach the loom beam.  This bell is shown in Fig. 29, near the right-hand curved outer surface of the central frame.

As in hand warping or in linking, a single-thread lease is made at the end of the desired length of warp, or else what is known as a pair of “clasp-rods” is arranged to grip the sheet of warp threads.

After the loom beam, with its length of warp, has been removed from the machine, the threads are either drawn through the eyes or mails of the cambs (termed gears, healds or heddles in other districts) and through the weaving reed, or else they are tied to the ends of the threads of the previous warp which, with the weft, has been woven into cloth.  These latter threads are still intact in the cambs and reed in the loom.

CHAPTER XIV.  TYING-ON, DRAWING-IN, AND WEAVING

If all the threads of the newly-dressed warp can be tied on to the ends of the warp which has been woven, it is only necessary, when the tying-on process is completed, to rotate the loom beam slowly, and simultaneously to draw forward the threads until all the knots have passed through the cambs and the reed, and sufficiently far forward to be clear of the latter when it approaches its full forward, or beating up, position during the operation of weaving.

If, on the other hand, the threads of the newly-dressed, or newly-beamed, warp had to be drawn-in and reeded, these operations would be performed in the drawing-in and reeding department, and, when completed, the loom beam with its attached warp threads, cambs and reed, would be taken bodily to the loom where the “tenter,” “tackler” or “tuner” adjusts all the parts preparatory to the actual operation of weaving.  The latter work is often termed “gaiting a web.”