Shortened example of winding or spooling frame for supplying hosiery machine etc., by Robert Broadbent, Stalybridge, Manchester, England, 1894-1901, from patents granted 1886-1893.

This is a short length only of the machine used for winding yarn from cops into large spools, of either cylindrical or conical shape, ready for use in doubling or in knitting machines. The example represented embodies several inventions patented by Robert Broadbent between 1886 and 1893, and is usually arranged for winding 20 cylindrical spools along one side, and 20 conical ones along the other, with the driving pulley at one end and the special mechanism at mid length, as shown in the attached photographs of a complete frame. If the spools are being prepared for treatment in a doubling frame the yarn from several cops is simultaneously being wound on a spool, but if for knitting the yarn is wound singly. The cops are placed on vertical skewers in front of the machine, and the yarn from them passes through wire eyes and over an angularly adjustable blanket-covered rail, by which the winding tension can be controlled; it then passes through detector wires, by which the winding of the spool is stopped should any of its yarn break, and is wound on its spool at a constant peripheral speed owing to the spool resting on a revolving drum which drives it by contact. In the conical winder the driving surface is conical, as is also the central core of the spool. As the spools are formed on cores without flanges, the requisite cohesion is obtained by winding the yarn in reversed helices of large pitch, obtained by the motion of a traverse bar driven by a crank whose arm is varied by the action of a fixed pointed oval groove or cam which gives uniform winding and a rapid reversal at each end of its travel. The winding drums or cones are driven by ropes from a continous central shaft, while the detector wires are so arranged that should any yarn break its wire drops and comes into contact with a revolving wiper, by which the corresponding spool is lifted off its drum and its motion promptly arrested by a stop on its centre.