MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Stanley]

Getting very close China! Think of the healds and the difference between the knitted ones and the others with metal guides....

[Stanley]

Time to knock this one on the head I think.... It was difficult, you need a fairly intimate knowledge of looms to recognise them. They are heald chains, the way the healds were connected to the rocking bar on top of the loom that lifted and lowered the heald at the appropriate time to give you the weave. The normal knitted healds were always connected with tackler's band, a very strong string, when metal reeds were used (very rare at Bancroft) these chains were used instead of the string. I never saw this done...
Next for shaving?

[Stanley]

All right! Try this one....



The black mark about a third of the way in from the left is very important....

[Marilyn]

A measure?
Not sure what for...

[Cathy]

What black mark Stanley??
Nothing stands out.

[chinatyke]

Difficult to see if these are wires. Is it used in warp sizing to split the sized threads?

[Stanley]

Look again Cathy, click to enlarge...
Getting warm China but not there yet!

[plaques]

It looks a bit like a weaving loom reed. Used for pushing the weft into place after each pass of the shuttle. The markers are probably to aid counting the warp threads depending how fine the cloth is going to be.

[Stanley]

You've got it P! But there is a bit more to this reed than meets the eye. I shan't keep you in suspense for long....
China was very close, he was thinking about the striking comb used by sizers for getting some order into the web as it came off the cylinders. It was made the same way as a reed but with shorter cents and no bottom bar so the ends were open.

[Stanley]

This one is too obscure, I shall have to knock it on the head. The reed is a 'bastard reed'. This is because the width between the dents is wider at each end. Often see as a cheat they were no such thing. When you are weaving a piece of cotton cloth it tends to contract in width as the weft tightens up and to preserve the width there are two angled spiked rollers called 'temples' at each side as the cloth comes off the loom which stretch the cloth sideways and restore the width contracted for. This cloth contraction is most evident at each side and if the density of the weave is the same as in the body of the cloth the pressure can actually build to the point where you get a burst selvedge. Spacing the dents a bit wider at each side means that there is less tendency for the cloth to contract and when it does the pressures aren't excessive. Despite the wider dents, after contraction the cloth is the specified width and the same count evenly all the way across. The use of the bastard reed has saves 4 or five warp threads at each side for the whole length of the taper's set which could be up to 30,000 yards. So you have kept to the contract and saved perhaps over 100,000 yards of warp thread which of course is a saving. There is a lot more to specifying a set of warps than meets the eye and the variations are almost infinite with different cloths, weights of count and density of weaving. Jim Pollard did all this in his head from experience. So the next time someone tells you that bastard reeds are a way of cheating, you can put them right!
Next one?

[Stanley]

Come on.... find us a new object!

[Pluggy]

Not Obscure at all, just a very small part of it.....

[Cathy]

Is it the tap on a room heater (we don't have those kind of heaters here, so not quite sure what to call it... Central Heating unit...? ).

[Pluggy]

Nope....

[Marilyn]

The other end of one of those teeny tiny screwdrivers for fixing eye glasses/jewellery ?

[Cathy]

Part of a heated towel rail.

(It's hard to imagine the size.)

[chinatyke]

Adjustment on the handle of a mole grip.

[Pluggy]

China has it.

[Stanley]

I was puzzling over that one until China said Mole grip.... then it was obvious. Try this one....

[LizG]

Is it a scalpel with the blade stuck into a cork to protect the blade?

[Marilyn]

A dart.

[Cathy]

Is it a leather working tool stuck into a piece of cork to protect the end, or to work as a handle to make it easier to hold ??

[Stanley]

You are all there actually. It's an Exacto knife used in hobbies and fine cutting. The cork is there to protect me when I'm reaching for it, not the blade!

[plaques]

The easy bit, which building can you find this plaque on? The hard bit, what is different about this plaque compared with all the rest round Barlick?

[PanBiker]

I'll say the hard bit (debatable) is that it has a Yorkshire rose and a Lancashire rose but both are white. I should add that the plaque is on the Greyhound (The Dog) in Barlick.