The silk culture has a long and profound history. Our ancient ancestors began to cultivate mulberry trees, raise silkworms, spin silk and weave silk during the mid-Changshan Age of the Neolithic period. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the silk industry had achieved remarkable development, with significant increases in production scale and technological level. Moreover, more complex looms and weaving techniques were also developed.
The silk culture embodies the diligence and wisdom of the ancient ancestors. It was precisely because of such textile tools as the ancient looms that the extensive and profound silk culture was created. And the development of modern looms has also been very rapid. Today, let's introduce the "master craftsmen" of modern looms - the shuttle loom.
The loom with a shuttleless mechanism is the most widely used type of loom. Besides having the characteristics of high speed, high automation level and high efficiency in production of shuttleless looms, its positive weft insertion method also has strong adaptability to various types of yarns, and can be used for weft insertion of various kinds of yarns. Moreover, the shuttleless loom has obvious advantages in multi-color weft weaving, and can produce color woven products with up to 16 colors of weft yarns. With the replacement of shuttle looms by shuttleless looms, the shuttleless loom will become the main production machine for woven fabrics.
The warping loom is mainly designed to address the problem of thread feeding. It includes rigid, flexible and telescopic thread feeding methods. Its main products are fabric materials for clothing. Compared with other thread feeding methods, the thread feeding method of the warping loom is suitable for multi-color thread feeding and can produce products with 12-color thread feeding patterns, including various types of yarns and various types of fabrics. The active warping drive can complete thread feeding for many difficult-to-feed yarns.
The main advantage of the weft insertion system of the rigid heddle loom is that it actively transfers the weft to the center of the wefting opening without the need for any guiding devices. The rigid heddle loom occupies a large area, mainly because there is a certain limit to the width of the warper.
The weft insertion system of the flexible loom is highly adaptable and has a wide range of applications. The weft insertion rate has significantly increased, and the width of the warping frame has reached 460 cm.
In the last 15 years of the 20th century, electronic computers were introduced to looms, and the microelectronic CAD-CAM system was widely applied, resulting in a perfect integration of microelectronic technology, information transmission technology and weaving technology. Many electronic devices and systems were combined with looms to become components of the warping loom. Especially, the wide application of microelectronic technology in warping looms, including the warping technology, led to significant improvements in some warping components, which became smaller in size and lighter in weight.
From the above introduction to the shuttle loom, we can see the glorious development of modern looms. From ancient looms to modern looms, technology has advanced, yet our cultural traditions have never been absent.