MACHINE FOR MAKING CARDS FOR CARDING WOOL, COTTON, FLAX, SILK, AND ALL SUBSTANCES CAPABLE OF BEING CARDED
Year: 1809

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, JOHN
TOWILL RUTT, of Basinghall Street, London, JOHN FRETTON, of Saint
Andrews Hill, London, and JOHN WEBB, of Clapton, in the County of Mid-
dlesex, do send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-first day of November, in the Fiftieth year of His
reign, did give and grant unto us, our executors, administrators, and assigns,
His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that we, the
said John Towill Rutt, John Fretton, and John Webb, our executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, during the term of years therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our new Invented "MACHINE FOR MAKING
CARDS FOR CARDING WOOL, COTTON, FLAX, SILK, AND ALL SUBSTANCES CAPABLE OF
BEING CARDED;" in which Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging
us, the said John Towill Rutt, John Fretton, and John Webb, under our
hands and seals, to cause a particular description of the nature of our said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in
His Majesty's High Court of Chancery, within two calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and

page_text: by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at larg
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the sai
John Towill Rutt, John Fretton, and John Webb, do hereby declare that ou
said Invention consists of various improvements on a machine for making
cards, for which a Patent was granted the Twenty-sixth of June, in the yea
One thousand seven hundred and minety-nine, and of which the Specification
has been duly enrolled.
To describe the improved machine, we will suppose that cards are required
to be made thirty-six inches long, and from two to seven inches wide. The
frame, which is the base of the machine, is of iron, eleven feet long, two fee
nine inches wide, and stands on six legs. Instead of the carriage being fixed
to a sliding bar on the bottom, we have a sliding frame of cast iron, brass, o
any other metal, eight feet long and eleven inches wide. This frame slides or
two grooved bars, instead of a single bar. This two bars are fixed to the
aforesaid base-frame. To the sliding frame two racks are fixed to give it
motion. On this sliding frame, instead of two bars, we fix two stands four feet
five inches from each other, and two feet ten inches high. These stands are
secured at the top by an iron bar. This part of the machine we call the carriage.
To these two stands we fix the stretching frame, instead of its working by
springs; this stretching frame is three feet eight inches long, and from two to
seven inches wide. In this stretching frame, which is in the front of the
machine, is fixed a leaf of leather. of the length and width required, and there
stretched by two long screws fixed at the ends of the said stretching frame, and
connecting its upper and lower parts. To put the sliding frame in motion, two
shafts, each two feet long, cross its centre. On each of these is fixed a pinion.
These pinions work in the racks fixed on the front side of the sliding frame.
On each of these shafts is also fixed a saw teeth wheel. On the front of the
base frame, at the right hand of the extremity, is fixed a stand ono foot four
inches high, and on the left, at five feet five inches distance, another like it.
On these two stands is placed a spindle or arbour.
fly wheel fifteen inches from the extremity; at the
fixed a knob. Across the carriage are two pieces
one foot apart. Across these pieces is fixed a stand, the top of which is on a
level with the spindle, and about twelve inches from it. From the top of the
said stand to the aforesaid knob on the spindle is placed a lever. On this lever
are placed two lifting dogs, which work in the before-mentioned saw-teeth
wheels, one of which moves the carriage to the left, and the other to the right,
On this spindle is fixed a
left hand of the spindle is
fixed on the frame, about

page_text: nstead of the carriage being moved by dogs only. Four stands, two feet ten
nches high, are fixed on the back of the base frame, one at each extremity,
rom which the other two stands are distant three feet ten inches each. On
he top of the four stands a shaft turns, on the right-hand end of which a
wheel with saw teeth is fixed. From the back stand at the right-hand
extremity to the end of the spindle is fixed a lever on which is a dog, and
another is fixed to the aforesaid stand; both levers work in the saw-teeth
wheel. On the shaft before described as turning on the back stands are fixed
three rollers, one in the centre, and one at each end. On these are fixed three
chains, which are also fixed to a bar resting on the back stands. On this bar
also rests the stretching frame. On the spindles is fixed a knob, which works
one of the levers connected with the saw-teeth wheel. Under that lever is an
upright lever, which communicates with the carriage, and, as the machine goes
on, raises the stretching frame to make another row of the card. As the part
of our machine called the plate materially differs from that described in the
before-mentioned Specification, it is necessary fully to describe its variations.
Our fixed lower plates is brass, thirteen inches long and seven inches wide.
On each side of the plate, and paralel with the rollers, are fixed two tubes or
pipes to conduct the wires to the rollers. From the rollers to the fixed part
of the shears are fixed two other pipes or tubes to conduct the wires to the
mouth pieces. Instead of using only one pair of rollers we use two pair, one
pair on the right, and the other on the left side of the plate. On the end of
the spindle is fixed a wheel, of which about one third of the circumference has
teeth. Fourteen inches from this wheel is another exactly like it. These
wheels work into another wheel on one of the rollers, which drives the roller.
These tubes and rollers conduct the wires to the mouth pieces. These mouth
pieces, of which there are two, are pieces of steel about three inches long, in
which a groove is cut for the crowners to work. On the back end of the
mouth pieces are fixed two pieces of steel exactly the breadth of the crowns of
the staples required. These pieces are fixed to a spring on its own sliding
plate. The two crowners, which are thin pieces of steel about four inches long
and about half an inch broad, work on the top of this plate by a knob on the
spindle, and having a small knotch on their back ends. They are thus brought
against the pieces of steel (before mentioned as fixed at the back end of the
mouth pieces), and hold the wires as in a vice. The two wires being then cut
off, instead of two we have four staples about eight inches long, which, being
brought back by a knob on the spindle, form two staples instead of one.
These staples are conducted by regulating screws fixed near the spindle,

page_text: which gives them the desired shape. The staples are thus conducted through
the mouth pieces so far in the leaf of leather as is necessary for the crook.
On the other side of the leather, and at the point where the staple is designed
to be crooked, is fixed a thin steel anvil, nearly in the form of a letter L. On
the back of this anvil the crookers are fixed, which are four pieces of steel
about seven inches long. At the ends of these, and close to the anvil, are
four small holes to receive the wires. These crookers being fixed to a shaft
which is fixed to the back stands, and from which shaft a lever reaches to the
spindle, thus, by a knob on the spindle, bend the staples to the crook required.
On the top of the mouth pieces is fixed a spring, which is now lifted up to
give liberty to the crowners to shoot back and force up the staples to their
proper places. This is effected by means of the spring of the crowners, which
are then brought forward by the lever, acted upon by a knob on the spindle as
the other levers are. The staples are now completed, and in their proper
places; the carriage is now shifted to the distance of the next two staples.
The whole of these movements take place more than one hundred times in a
minute. In order to make two eighteen inch cards at one time on a machine
of the size here described, and thus put in four staples at once, we place
another plate, made exactly like that just described, and on a stage twenty
inches distant from it, with another anvil and crookers like the first. The
machine is worked in every other respect as if we were making but one card,
and putting in but two staples at once.
To accommodate the machine to ribbon cards or filleting, the stretching
frame and hanging bars aro removed. A pair of small rollers are now
fitted to the carriage. They are moved by a band, which passes over
two pullies, one on the top bar and another on the axis of one of the rollers.
The leather must be wide enough for two of the filletts required, and is
put under a pulley fixed to the floor exactly under the two rollers, and
over another pulley fixed above the machine. There a weight is suspended
to keep it tight against the anvil, where it is pierced and stapled, as in the
leaf cards.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals, this
'

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Nineteenth day of
January, in the year last above mentioned, the aforesaid John Towill Rutt,
John Fretton, and John Webb, came before our Lord the King in His
Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every
thing therein contained in form above written. And also the Specification
aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute in that case
made and provided.
Inrolled the same Nineteenth day of January, in the year above
written.