Knitting technology, Third Edition

17
The straight bar frame and full-fashioning
17.1
The development of the straight bar frame
The straight bar frame is, with a number of later improvements and developments,
recognisable as a direct descendant of 
William Lee’s
hand frame.
Credit for the development of the first acceptable power-driven rotary frame is
given to 
Samuel Wise
who, in 1769, replaced the foot pedals with a power-driven
rotary shaft whose tappets caught against arms and levers to move the working
parts. To increase productivity it was necessary to simplify the knitting action and
introduce automatic mechanisms to replace hand-controlled operations. In 1857,
Luke Barton
replaced hand-controlled loop transfer points used for fashion shaping
with a self-acting narrowing mechanism, and in 1861,
Paget
invented a movable
needle bar.
It was, however,
William Cotton
of Loughborough who transformed the hand-
controlled power-driven rotary frame into the high-speed automatic fashioning
multi-head straight bar frame. This speeded the transition of knitting from a cottage-
based to a mass-production industry. Between 1846 and 1864, he obtained patents
which have caused the term ‘
Cottons Patent
’ or ‘
Cotton Machine
’ to become syn-
onymous with that of the straight bar frame.
Cotton invented the vertically moving needle bar, developed the use of screw-
controlled fashioning points for automatically widening and narrowing, and placed
the driving shaft for the elements towards the base of the machine to reduce 
vibration.
The replacement in 1953 of the end controls by a central control unit paved the
way for the modern automatic straight bar frame with its fully-programmed
garment-knitting sequence (Fig. 17.1). Balanced and simplified motions, together
with variable draw, have increased knitting speeds, whilst automatic actions have
reduced standing time and labour supervision [1].

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The straight bar frame and full-fashioning
195
Fig. 17.1
Sixteen-head plain straight bar frame having a conveyer for transporting the rib ends to each head [Iropa].

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196
Knitting technology