A vibrating shuttle is a
bobbin driver Throughout history, lockstitch
A lockstitch is the most common mechanical stitch made by a sewing machine. The term "single needle stitching", often found on dress shirt labels, refers to lockstitch.
Structure
The lockstitch uses two threads ...
design used in home
lockstitch
A lockstitch is the most common mechanical stitch made by a sewing machine. The term "single needle stitching", often found on dress shirt labels, refers to lockstitch.
Structure
The lockstitch uses two threads, an upper and a lower. Locksti ...
sewing machines during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It supplanted earlier ''transverse'' shuttle designs, but was itself supplanted by ''rotating'' shuttle designs.
Overview
![Lockstitch - Anthony Atkielski](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Lockstitch_-_Anthony_Atkielski.png)
In order to create a
lockstitch
A lockstitch is the most common mechanical stitch made by a sewing machine. The term "single needle stitching", often found on dress shirt labels, refers to lockstitch.
Structure
The lockstitch uses two threads, an upper and a lower. Locksti ...
a sewing machine intertwines two threads: an upper thread (descending with the needle into the workpiece from above) and a lower thread (ascending into the workpiece from the bobbin below). To intertwine them, the machine must pass its shuttle (containing the
bobbin
A bobbin or spool is a spindle or cylinder, with or without flanges, on which yarn, thread, wire, tape or film is wound. Bobbins are typically found in industrial textile machinery, as well as in sewing machines, fishing reels, tape measure ...
and the lower thread) through a loop temporarily created from the upper thread.
![Singer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Singer.VibratingShuttleWithBobbin.jpg)
Early sewing machines of the 19th century oscillate their shuttles back and forth on linear horizontal tracks—an arrangement called a "
transverse shuttle". A ''vibrating'' shuttle machine, by contrast, 'vibrates' its shuttle in a circular arc. This movement represents less total mechanical motion, which means less friction, less wear, higher maximum speed, and higher reliability than in a transverse shuttle system.
Early vibrating shuttle designs inherited the boat-shaped shuttle used in transverse shuttle machines, where the bobbin is inserted from the open side of the "boat". In the 1880s, bullet shuttles became dominant. The bullet shuttle is long and slender, shaped like a bullet, with a pointed tip that is sometimes called the hook. The bobbin inserts from the rear, and the tip is pointed for the purpose of intercepting the small loop temporarily created (by a brief upward needle motion) in the upper thread—see pictures below of its operation. The bobbin too is long and slender to fit inside the shuttle; in this regard it is very different than the fat rotary bobbins of later sewing machines.
History
Although popularized by
Singer's 27/127 model series sewing machine, the vibrating shuttle was not invented at Singer.
Wilson
![VibratingShuttle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/VibratingShuttle.WilsonPatent7776.page2.jpg)
It was actually invented by
Allen B. Wilson
Allen Benjamin Wilson (1823–1888) was an American inventor famous for designing, building and patenting some of the first successful sewing machines. He invented both the '' vibrating'' and the ''rotating'' shuttle designs which, in turns, ...
in 1850, just one year before he would invent the
rotary hook
The rotary hook (aka rotating hook) is a bobbin driver design used in lockstitch sewing machines of the 19th and 20th century and beyond. It triumphed over competing designs because it can run at higher speeds with less vibration. Rotary hooks an ...
design that would eventually prevail over all other
lockstitch bobbin driver designs. Wilson's original patent is US patent 7776, granted 12 November 1850, with reissues RE345 on 22 January 1856 and RE414 on 9 December 1856. The second page of his patent, showing the shuttle in its arc, is shown at left.
He was soon beset with patent litigation from the owners of the
John Bradshaw patent:
:"He was approached by the owners of the Bradshaw 1848 patent, who claimed control of the double-pointed shuttle. Although this claim was without justification, as can be seen by examining the Bradshaw patent specifications, Wilson did not have sufficient funds to fight the claim. In order to avoid a suit, he relinquished to A. P. Kline and Edward Lee, a one-half interest in his U.S. patent 7,776
€¦
His machine "had a considerable sale, but was not satisfactory to its inventor, who set himself to work to produce something more practical"—a new
rotary hook
The rotary hook (aka rotating hook) is a bobbin driver design used in lockstitch sewing machines of the 19th and 20th century and beyond. It triumphed over competing designs because it can run at higher speeds with less vibration. Rotary hooks an ...
design.
Stephen French
In 1868, Stephen French, working at the Gold Medal Sewing Machine Company in Orange, Massachusetts, patented an improved method of driving the vibrating arm. He used this mechanism in his designs of both the "Home Shuttle" sewing machine (from Johnson, Clark & Co., a related enterprise) and the Gold Medal "Home" sewing machine. (The next model designed by Gold Medal, in 1878, was called the "New Home", and it proved so popular that the company was reincorporated as the
New Home Sewing Machine Company in 1882.)
Porter and Baker
![WhiteSewingMachineCompany](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/WhiteSewingMachineCompany.1941CompanyBook.Page4.jpg)
In 1876,the
White Sewing Machine Company
The White Sewing Machine Company was a sewing machine company founded in 1858 in Templeton, Massachusetts, by Thomas H. White and based in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1866.
History
Founded as the White Manufacturing Company it took the White S ...
developed a machine around the vibrating shuttle which became the company's flagship product—so much so that it was originally named the "
White Sewing Machine
The White Sewing Machine was the first sewing machine from the White Sewing Machine Company. It used a vibrating shuttle bobbin driver design. For that reason, and to differentiate it from the later White Family Rotary that used a rotary hook desi ...
", only later taking the name "White Vibrating Shuttle" when a
rotary hook
The rotary hook (aka rotating hook) is a bobbin driver design used in lockstitch sewing machines of the 19th and 20th century and beyond. It triumphed over competing designs because it can run at higher speeds with less vibration. Rotary hooks an ...
model was added to the product line.
Whitehill
The vibrating shuttle's next development came in 1885, at the hands of Scottish immigrant Robert Whitehill. He designed a new machine around it which
Singer
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
bought and popularized.
The initial design of the Porter/Baker shuttle would change little throughout the 86 years that it would remain in production at White and then at Singer. This can be seen in the following shuttle-threading diagrams taken from the White and Singer instruction manuals:
Operation
The following photo gallery shows the vibrating shuttle cycling through a single stitch. In the pictures, the silver sliding covers have been opened to show the operation of the shuttle; normally they would be closed to prevent interference between the workpiece and the shuttle.
Obsolescence
The vibrating shuttle was a significant innovation towards the goal of a simple, fast, and reliable lockstitch sewing machine, and the design remained popular for decades. Indeed, even twenty-five years later, on 10 October 1910, Singer was awarded US patent 1005177 for a new shuttle-ejector mechanism for it. (The improvement is one of those incorporated into the 'modernized' models 127 and 128 that replaced the 27 and 28.)
Later sewing machines abandoned such designs in favor of the faster rotary and/or hook-based designs.
Rotary and hook-based designs are superior because they do not cause their sewing machine to shake and 'walk' the way that vibrating and transverse shuttles do. Vibrating shuttle machines nevertheless remained in production until the 1960s.
[Last documented Singer 128 production batch ET613325-ET638324 built in 1962; refer to the production records section of the ]Singer Model 27 and 127
The Singer Model 27 and later model 127 were a series of lockstitch sewing machines produced by the Singer Manufacturing Company from the 1880s to the 1960s. (The 27 and the 127 were full-size versions of the Singer 28 and later model 128 which ...
page for details.
References
{{Sewing
American inventions
Sewing
Sewing machines