Many ruffles manufactured today are sewn with the chain stitch.įront of Sewing Machine by Gibbs & Wilcox Sewing Machine Company, manufactured by Brown & Sharpe, Providence, RI. Later models had exciting attachments, like the ‘ruffler’ which allowed the sewing of ruffles using the sewing machine. 1858 was donated to us by Brown & Sharpe’s successor Hexagon Metrology in 2006. Brown & Sharpe manufactured them in Providence, Rhode Island until 1948. In 1858 Wilcox & Gibbs engaged Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing to manufacture their sewing machines. Gibbs partnered with James Wilcox and his son Charles, forming Wilcox & Gibbs, a highly successful sewing machine company based in Virginia and England. This particular machine was invented by James Edward Allen Gibbs (1829-1902), a farmer in Virginia, in the mid 1850’s and finally patented by him in 1857. As a machine, it was to effect sweeping changes to the daily lives of many worldwide.īack of Sewing Machine by Gibbs & Wilcox Sewing Machine Company, manufactured by Brown & Sharpe, Providence, RI. Compared to the plastic sewing machines of today, it is rather sexy. As an object its elegant, arched lines, gilt embellishment and black lacquer finish seem almost modern, each element minimally designed for function with a grace of form.
This series of operations is repeated at every revolution of the hook.This small, precisely engineered, beautiful example of Victorian engineering is a Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machine. 5, and is drawn tight by drawing open the new loop. 4.) The next motion of the hook will allow this latter loop to slip off entirely from the hook, as shown in Fig. This cast-off is so arranged in relation to the hook and angular recess r that the loop, is spread for the hook-nose to pass through on taking a fresh loop from the needle.Īt this moment the hook has two loops engaged, the fresh loop at the nose and the preceding loop, which now bears against the convex part of the hook. This is effected by the spur or cast-off x. e., the thread which has been behind the needle is brought to the front, while the thread in front of the needle is turned toward the rear of the loop. This is done during the time the hook is revolving from position Fig.
The hook is gradually swelling, (in thickness,) and is concavely shaped where the loop is in contact therewith, for the purpose of not drawing more thread than is strictly necessary.Īfter the loop has thus been drawn open, it will slip off the hook and lodge into the angular recess r, which the hook is forming with the shaft. The loop is now gradually spread by the hook during the next following part of its revolution. In the same time the hook will advance and penetrate the loop, as shown in Fig. The next motion of the needle will be ascending. "The hook is so arranged in relation to the needle-arm that when the latter shall have reached its lowest point of stroke the hook is just facing the loop which the needle has brought through the cloth.
Willcox & Gibbs Automatic Instruction Manual The thread is twisted in its rotation before a new loop is started. In this patent the revolving hook takes the loop of thread and holds it while the feed moves the fabric until the needle descends once more through the loop. James Gibbs took out two patents (Decemand January 20, 1857), before the all important patent above, from June 2, 1857. Willcox was impressed with Gibbs' machine and put him to work with his own son, Charles Willcox. Having been to Washington's patent office he went to Philadelphia to show his model to James Willcox, who was specializing in building models of new inventions. His work on it had to fit around his employment and he was hampered by a lack of tools and materials, but by April of that year his first model was ready and his employers agreed to finance the patenting of it. To him it looked too heavy and expensive and he decided to pursue his idea of a simpler, lightweight chainstitch machine. In January 1856 while visiting his father he saw a Singer machine in a tailor's shop for the first time. He could tell the needle went in and out of the same hole in the fabric, rather than travelling completely through as in hand sewing, and came up with the idea that sewing had to have been accomplished with a chainstitch. The picture only showed the top half of the machine, so Gibbs tried to imagine how a stitch was formed. James Gibbs had originally seen a woodcut picture of a Grover & Baker machine in 1855.