A rapier loom is a shuttleless weaving loom that carries the weft yarn across the warp threads with a rigid or flexible carrier called a rapier, rather than with a thrown shuttle. A stationary package supplies the weft yarn, and a rapier reaches across the loom to place a length of it as a pick before retracting, with some designs using a pair of rapiers that meet in the middle of the loom to hand the yarn from one to the other. Rapier looms can weave a wide range of fabrics, from light muslin to heavier upholstery cloth, and are one of several shuttleless weaving technologies that replaced the traditional thrown shuttle in modern textile mills. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Introduced When (Circa) OriginDevelopment began in 1844 with a patent by John Smith of Salford for a shuttleless loom design. Later patents followed from Phillippe and Maurice in 1855, W.S. Laycock in 1869, and W. Glover in 1874, with rigid rapiers perfected by O. Hallensleben in 1899 and flexible rapiers proposed in 1925 by R.G. Moya. Rapier weaving was not fully commercialized until the 1950s and 1960s. 1 Sources
1. Rapier loom (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory of the rapier loom section, first sentenceQuote, History of the rapier loom section, first sentence
The development of the rapier loom began in 1844, when John Smith of Salford was granted a patent on a loom design that eliminated the shuttle typical of earlier models of looms.
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