IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CUTTING AND POLISHING GLASS, MARBLE, STONE, AND OTHER SIMILAR MATERIALS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Garrett Tongue at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 28th November 1878. A communication
from abroad by Jean Pierre Colné and Charles Colné, of Washington, United
States of America..
JOHN GARRETT TONGUE, of the Firm of Tongue and Birkbeck, Patent Agents
and Engineers, of 34, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, in the County of
Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CUTTING AND POLISHING GLASS,
MARBLE, STONE, AND OTHER SIMILAR MATERIALS." A communication from abroad
by Jean Pierre Colné and Charles Colné, of Washington, United States of
America.
This Invention relates to improvements in machinery for cutting and polishing
glass, marble, stone, and in general all other similar materials.
The advantage obtained by this improved machine on all other machinery in use
for this purpose consists in having the piece of the material to be worked mounted.
and fixed between two standards so that any form of cut, either straight, flat, oblique,
concave, convex, cylindrical, or flat facets can be obtained automatically.
All the operations are arranged mechanically, and nothing is left to the skill of
the workman, so that the machine once being fixed and adjusted for any kind of
cut an unskilled workman can obtain a perfect result.
The machine is composed of a frame, the horizontal part being provided with rails
on which a carriage moves, which carriage supports the mechanisto. The fixed
frame is provided with two uprights having a fixed disc provided with parts which
enter into slots formed in another disc of equal diameter to the former, the tightening
being effected by means of screws.
Two arms are fixed on this latter disc, the ends of which retain an axis firmly in
position, and upon which a revolving circular disc is mounted and actuated by means
of a grooved pulley driven by any suitable motive power.
This arrangement has for its object to incline the revolving disc to any desired
angle.
The apparatus for moving the material to be cut or polished is composed of a
carriage inounted on four wheels, with V shaped grooves, so as to move on the rails
of the fixed frame. The platform of the carriage is provided with two rails, on
which slide two grooved plates surmounted with another plate formed with different

page_text: curved slots or surfaces. On this plate friction rollers travel, attached to the carriage.
These friction rollers, which follow up the different curved surfaces, are movable,
and may be fixed to suit the form of curve required.
The carriage has two fixed points of fastening, one interior, the other exterior, so
as to obtain concave or convex cuts by changing a pin which connects the carriage
to the plate and constitutes its centre of evolution.
A frame also slides on the two sides of the carriage, combined with another frame
moving in dovetail guides. The ends of this frame are furnished with two
standards for receiving the points or centres for supporting the materials to be
turned or cut.
A central plate and a bolt provided with screws allows the frame bearing the
standards to stop on its support.
The uprights or standards are movable in order to draw near or withdraw one
from the other according to the size of the materials to be worked. One is supplied
with a socket or chuck, through the centre of which the axis of one of the centre
points passes. This socket or chuck admits of the material to be worked to be
put in relation by means of a crank in order to turn the cylindrical parts.
Finally, by means of a cog wheel and a catch the exact division of the facets is
obtained. The number of the latter will be always equal to the number of notches
of the cog wheel; therefore as many will be required as the number of facets will
vary on the circumference of the material.
By this arrangement the carriage and the frame moving and sliding one on the
other in accurate conditions, and with the power which the latter frame represents
of being transformed into a lathe, any kind of material can be cut and polished,
whatever may be the fancy or character of the design.
Each part of the machine designed to furnish in the work of forward course
must be arrested by suitable angle blocks or stops sliding on racks arranged in a
convenient manner. The angle blocks are fixed by means of screws at the place
which determines, the length of the materials to be cut.
The movement of the carriages will be governed in a rectilinear course by means
of screws and screw nuts, which regulates mathematically the least forward move-
ment. In order to obtain this object graduated rulers fixed on the machine at
suitable points indicate with precision the measure of the least displacement, and
thereby prevent all uncertainty on behalf of the workman. In order to avoid sand
or dust in working entering into the machine it may be covered with metal plates
or other suitable material.
The material to be worked must be first prepared by being perfectly centred in a
frame.
The centraling, which must be made with great care, is obtained by means of an
assistant apparatus composed of two frames, one with rectilinear slides, in which
convergent uprights move towards the centre, the other slides carrying pins fixed
on the uprights mentioned above.
The frames are pierced in the centre with a cylindrical hole of a larger diameter
than that of the largest piece or material required to be worked in the machine.
In revolving the frame the pins, perfectly guided, are moved in equal degrees,
and the object to be cut when well pressed in all parts is invariably placed in the
centre of the frames.
For centring the other end of the object the frames are slid on rack guidės, and
when at the required point it is worked as stated above.