Patent GB-190620677-A (GB)
Title: Improved Process of and Machine for Forming Articles from Pulp Fibre.
Inventor: JUSTICE PHILIP MIDDLETON
Filed: 1906-09-18
Granted: 1906-12-31
Abstract: 20,677. Justice, P. M., [United States Fibre Stopper Co.]. Sept. 18. Moulding pulp stoppers &c.-Pulp water from a reservoir is delivered in measured quantity to a bucket 6 in position A, Fig. 2. A series of these buckets are carried on a table 7 intermittently-rotated by a pawl 19 and ratchet 9, Fig. 7, and, while passing from position A to position B, the water drains away through the perforated bottoms 14 of the buckets and holes 15 in the table into a receptacle 16 and out through a pipe 17. At position B, an intermittently and vertically reciprocating rack 13 acting on teeth 12 turns the buckets over on their supporting-shafts 11 to dump their contents into a trough formed by guideways 32 on the main plate 33 of the machine. In this trough, the pulp is compressed and finally formed into cylindrical shape by a top plunger 38, Fig. 7, concave-faced side-plungers 58, and a plunger 34. A wheel-shaped intermittently-rotated member 35 mounted on a shaft 36 has tapered dies formed in its rim and, while the solid parts of the rim form a fourth side of the trough during the preliminary pressure, these dies come successively opposite the end of the trough and the cylinders of pulp are forced into them by an inner hollow plunger 69 passing through the plunger 34 with its perforated face lying normally flush with the face of the outer plunger. The perforated faces of hollow plungers 84 form the bases of the tapering dies in the member 35 and the shaped pulp is allowed to remain in these dies for about threequarters of a revolution, till a cam-groove on a fixed part 86 co-operates with projections 85 on the plungers 84 and moves them forward for delivery. To aid in the extraction of water from the pulp, compressed air is forced through a pipe in the interior of the plunger 69, and recesses in the perforated side dies 58 are put into communication with a vacuum during the first compression. In addition, the plungers 84 are connected by pipes 102 to a rotary valve on the shaft 36, by means of which a vacuum is maintained behind the pulp for the greater part of the period that it is in the dies ; but at the moment of delivery, communication with the vacuum having been cut off, a blast of compressed air is passed through the plungers to help delivery. The pipe 112, which forms part of the communication with the vacuum, opens into a water-trap 114, Fig. 4, with an opening 116 in its base registering with an opening 118 in the rearward position of a reciprocating slide 117. An orifice in this slide receives the water and carries it forward for delivery down a tube 122. Motion is transmitted to various parts of the machine from the shaft 22 by cams, such as 24, 57, with cam-grooves on their sides engaging rollers carried on pivoted levers, such as 20, 54, 76. The member 35 is rotated by a bellcrank lever 72 and a pawl, and is held in its positions of rest by a spring-pressed lever 77 which, before rotation is effected, is thrown out of the recesses it engages in the rim 71 by means of a roller on the bell-crank lever. The rotary valve 92, employed for the transmission of positive or negative air pressure, is similar to that described in Specification No. 14,760, A.D. 1905.