CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR PREPARING TO BE SPUN COTTON AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robertson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 14th August
1861.
I, WILLIAM ROBERTSON, of the City of Manchester, Mecbanician, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS
IN MACHINES FOR PREPARING TO BE SPUN COTTON AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS,"
to be as follows:-
In carding engines a comb having a reciprocating motion is usually
employed for stripping the fleece or sliver from the doffer. Instead of this
reciprocating comb, I place a central shaft parallel with the doffer, and at each
end of it beyond the ends of the doffer I place a plate made susceptible of
receiving a series of shafts, solid or hollow, capable of receiving a small
amount of motion. On each of these shafts is placed a doffing comb, to
correspond in position with and adjusted to take the sliver or fleece from the
surface of the doffer. To effect the regulation of these combs, on the end of
each comb shaft is placed a small arm, having a projecting stud working in a
groove of irregular form fastened on the bracket, in which the central shaft is
made to revolve. The groove is adjusted so as to bring the combs into
position for stripping the doffer, and instantaneously to withdraw them from
contact with the fleece, whilst it remains in partial contact with the doffer.
By this instantaneous withdrawal the sliver is not carried round with the
stripping apparatus, but drops from the doffer in the same manner as when
the reciprocating comb is employed. To facilitate the instantaneous with-

page_text: drawal of the combs, springs may be employed to draw them towards the
central shaft, one end of each expanded spring being attached to a comb
or its shaft, the other end being attached. to the central shaft, or springs
may be placed as part of the external run of the irregular grooves, so as to
press each comb in succession at the proper time as rapidly as possible
out of contact with the fleece. Or a loose cover pulled centripetally by a spring
may be substituted. The apparatus-may be made exposed, so that the combs
and their shafts may be seen, or may be enclosed within a cylinder, through
which the combs alone will appear when in the act of stripping. Or a fixed
trough may be used, in which the whole or part may be enclosed, except so
much as may be necessary to separate the fleece from the doffer.
A second improvement consists in a new method of communicating motion to
the carding or other rollers of carding engines, in order to dispense with the
chains or bands now employed. A crank or eccentric of definite eccentricity is
placed in or on a wheel, receiving motion from the same part as is employed in
communicating motion to the doffer, so as to be changed with it. Three or
more cranks of the same throw are placed one at each end of the card frame,
the other at the top, so that the motion communicated by the first crank will be
imparted to the others by a frame suitably made to embrace the points to which
the cranks are attached. To this frame are attached internal toothed wheels of
a diameter larger by the throw of the cranks than the external toothed wheels
fixed on the axles of the rollers with which they communicate; the wheels
must be in proportion to the velocity it is desired to give to these rollers.