The design students at the Münchberg Campus have recently been provided with new paths within the weaving mill. The reason for this is a new acquisition that recently went into operation: A weaving machine from Lindauer Dornier GmbH with a Jacquard machine from Stäubli has been on campus since September
“The Textile Design program is extremely excited about the opportunities this brings,” said Dipl.-Des.(FH) Christine Scholl of the Textile Design Department
The machine was used as a demonstration machine in the Lindauer Dornier GmbH showroom until 2020.
The possibilities of the new unit are manifold and open up completely new perspectives:
The two-part machine unit combines many different advantages that are particularly appealing to the budding textile designers at Hof University of Applied Sciences and expand and promote design freedom in jacquard weaving
Dipl.-Des.(FH)Christine Scholl, Department of Textile Design
The rapier technology of the weaving machine makes it possible to work and experiment with a wide variety of materials
Gripper can process any material
Laymen can imagine it like this: Since the weft thread is gripped and inserted into the fabric as if with a kind of pliers, the nature of the thread is irrelevant – so it doesn’t matter whether the material is thick, thin, smooth, puffy or slippery, because the rapier technology can process almost any material.
The second part of the unit is the Jacquard machine, which stands above the weaving machine, on a so-called Jacquard frame
Patterning across the entire fabric width
It controls which warp threads are raised or lowered at which point in the fabric. The two machines are connected by means of the harness. Each warp thread is connected to a harness cord and can thus be moved. The Jacquard machine from Stäubli enables single-thread control over the entire fabric width of 140 cm. Where otherwise a repeat of e.g. 35cm is repeated several times, here a pattern over the complete width is possible.
Since the height repeat of a Jacquard fabric is unlimited, large woven murals and banners become possible.
Modern software control
The machine is controlled digitally, using the jacquard software “DesignScopeVictor” from “EAT the design scope company”. The budding textile designers work on their design ideas within this software. The designs are planned with regard to their size, the haptic texture and the color effect in the fabric. With the help of the software and suitable weaving techniques, the so-called Jacquard card is developed from the design, which can then be read out by the Jacquard weaving machine.
“The new freedom in design will motivate the budding textile designers to use the jacquard technique more and to experiment,” says Christine Scholl. And further
In any case, the textile design team is already looking forward to the first results.
Dipl.-Des.(FH)Christine Scholl, Department of Textile Design