Bouchon, B
NAME: Bouchon, Basile
ACHIEVEMENTS: “Punched-card” principle as a control mechanism
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Unknown (Made his mark during the first half of the 18th century)
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: Unknown
DISCIPLINE: Weaver
FIELD: Textiles
LANGUAGE: French
PARENTS: Unknown
SIBLINGS: Unknown
SPOUSE: Unknown
CHILDREN: Unknown
EDUCATION: Unknown
MAJOR WORK: None
LIFE AND TIMES:
Son of an organmaker, he acquired a reputation in 1725, when he introduced improvements in the weaving industry.
Figured patterns were one of the specialties of France's important textile industry, but were extremely hard to produce. Each time weavers began a new pattern, it took an experienced operator about two weeks to set it up because of the complex arrangement of cords on the loom. Bouchon partially solved the problem by designing a mechanism that automatically selected the cords.
In Bouchon's invention (which would be improved upon in 1728 by Falcon*), the cords were threaded through needles set in a row in a sliding box. A roll of paper was perforated to match the required pattern and then used to create a perforated cylinder. When the cylinder came into contact with the box, the needles which passed over the unperforated parts of the paper, slid over the paper carrying their cords with them.
The needles which came into contact with the holes in the paper went through the holes, taking their cords with them, and then remained stationary. The cords which had been selected by this action were then drawn down by a foot-operated comb which caught on beads attached to the cords. The cylinder was then rotated to present the next series of perforations and the procedure was repeated.
Through their improvements, Bouchon, and later Falcon, were able to speed up the work, but they were not able, as they had hoped, to find a way to eliminate the need for draw-boys, young workers who lifted the right cords at the right time. (Errors committed by careless or tired boys were costly.)
After 1741, Vaucanson* came up with a machine that eliminated the need for the boys, but it was unwieldy and was never used. It was not until Jacquard* revised Vaucanson's design that a workable machine that did not require draw-boys was produced and adopted by the weaving industry.
ASSESSMENT: Bouchon started the automation process which almost 100 years later transformed the textile industry
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Bouchon's paper template for the cylinder was based on devices used in automated water-machines, like those used in the Villa D'Este* gardens
ONELINER: Basile Bouchon, inventor of the punch card concept
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Archives de France, Series II
Alphandery, M.F., Dictionnaire des inventeurs francais, 1963.