Frame-bar. [1] This name is given to two similar and similarly placed parts of the stocking frame (85, 96) (85, 96) [2] Plate 6, fig. 2. It is necessary to distinguish several parts; one can see on the front a piece 94, 94, called the guiding divider [3]; on their back a piece 95, 95, called the frame-bar’s inside hook  [4]: and under the lower part a piece 96, 96, called the frame-bar’s underhook. [5] Every one of these pieces has its use, according to its place and how the machine is set up. See, to be convinced of this, the article Stocking frame. [6] The upper extremity of the parts 85, 85, is put together and adjusted in the hinge of the shoulders, as can easily be seen in the first figure of the same Plate .

Notes

1. In the original, Abatant. Today the French term (spelled abattant, with two t ’s) refers to a table-leaf that can be folded down or the cover of a toilet that can be raised or lowered, and un siège abattant is a seat that folds down, like those in Paris metro cars. Here, however, the abatant referred to is one of two bars holding in place the complicated mechanical contraption that moves the knitting-work up and down. It is best translated, perhaps, as ‘frame-bar’. Littré, in his Dictionnaire de la langue française (1863-1872), indicates that the word abatant is obsolete. He gives two rather vague definitions: “1 ^o . Part of a stocking frame that causes the lead dividers [ platines à plomb ] to be lowered. 2 ^o . Part of a merchant’s counter that can be raised and lowered.” Littré complains, with respect to the word abatage, that “The Academy only puts one t; but it puts two in abattre; as a result we should put two t ’s in abatage, or only one in abattre .”

2. These numbers appear on Plate 6 of Faiseur de métier à faire des Bas (‘Stocking frame worker’, translated ‘Stocking Loom Maker’).

3. Garde platine.

4. Crochet du dedans de l’abatant.

5. Crochet de dessous des abatans.

6. Or ‘Stocking loom’.