Drop Box (Weaving Device)

A drop box, or dropbox, is a housing for a shuttle that sits beside a loom, invented in 1759 or 1760 by Robert Kay of Bury, Lancashire. It lets a weaver rapidly switch between two shuttles carrying bobbins of different colors, so multiple colors can be worked into figured fabrics or striped wefts without stopping to change shuttles by hand; the device is a partitioned lift mechanism at one end of the loom, and any of its sections can be lowered to the loom's working height so a shuttle can be loaded into it.