machine for making twisted and traversed net[1], he removed to a place where he could secure privacy and the constant sight of lace-making upon the pillow. During the time between 1805 and 1808 he perfected and patented his first machine, by which he could make a breadth of traversed and twisted net three inches wide. It was pronounced by Lord Lyndhurst "the most extraordinary machine ever invented; but he at once broke it up, and in 1809 patented another, which would make a wider net and had many other advantages.
"Cushion-made net had half the threads proceeding in wavy lines from end to end of the piece, and may be represented by warp-threads. The other threads, lying between the former, pass from side to side by an oblique course to the right and left, and may be called weft-threads. If the warp-threads could move relatively to the weft-threads so as to effect the twisting and crossing, but without deviating to the right or left hand, and if the weft-threads could be placed so that all of them should effect the twisting at the same time, and one-half of them should proceed at each operation to the left and the other half to the right hand (a substitute being also provided for the cushion-pins), lace would be made exactly as on the cushion," The machine patented by
Fig. 13.
Heathcote secured these results, and increased the production over the pillow-worker a thousand-fold. The courses of the threads forming the meshes of the bobbin-net frame may be seen in Fig. 13. When taken off and extended to their proper shape the meshes have the appearance shown in Fig. 14.
This wonderful machine was produced by the unaided mechanical skill of Heathcote; but in constructing it he met with such difficulties as led him long after to say that, "if it were to be done again, he should probably not attempt to overcome them." He was only twenty-six years old when he took the second patent. In 1813 he patented various improvements upon it and reduced the number of movements necessary to make a row of meshes. The machine of 1809 employed sixty movements to make one mesh, which is now done by twelve. It made one thousand meshes a minute, and only five or six could be made by hand. A machine of the present day produces thirty thou-
- ↑ Net in which great numbers of threads were made to twist with or wrap round each other, and to traverse, mesh by mesh, through a part or the entire width of the frame.
