CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS (BY THE APPLICATION OF KNOWN PRINCIPLES) UPON CERTAIN PARTS OF MILL SPINNING FOR SPINNING WOOL OR COTTON
Year: 1807

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ARCHIBALD
THOMSON, of the Parish of Saint John, in the City of Westminster and County
of Middlesex, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Second day of April,
in the forty-seventh year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Archibald Thomson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial
licence; full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Archibald
Thomson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of years
therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention
of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS (BY THE APPLICATION OF KNOWN PRINCIPLES) UPON
CERTAIN PARTS OF MILL SPINNING FOR SPINNING WOOL OR COTTON;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Archi-
bald Thomson, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause
a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within four calendar months after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto
had), may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Archibald Thomson, do hereby declare my improvements upon mill spinning

page_text: machinery principally consist in the application of known principles to the
adjustment of the bobbin, spindle, flyer, warf and traverse motion in the
different ways hereafter described. The bobbin is made similar to the common
plan, but the hole through it is cylindrical, as if intended to be bushed after-
wards. Within the bobbin is placed a tube of tin, or other metal or substance,
with a slit in each side, leaving a small space at the bottom, top, or middle; it
therefore acts as a spring by the pressure of a small screw through the bobbin
in each side at the bottom or top, or either of them, as may be found necessary.
It can be pressed or screwed sufficient to cause the necessary friction or
suction between the bobbin and spindle to prevent the least shake or agitating
motion. The bobbin at the bottom should be so constructed as to cause the
uptake of the yarn when started to be regularly gathered on without the
intermedium of a washer, as at present most generally used. Tho suction.or
friction of the bobbin and spindle should be so exact and delicate as not to
prevent the uptake of the yarn in the smallest. If the tube projects over the
end or ends of the bobbin, similar to a clutch block, it will answer the same
purpose, as already described. The warf for the driving of the spindle has
a tube in it similar to the bobbin, but it will answer the same purpose to
taper the hole and spindle so as to fit each other when the spindle is to
be carried round. The friction, when well-fitted, is sufficient; and when the
spindle is to be stopped, for changing the bobbin or otherways, the warf is to be
moved to the smaller place, where it runs with freedom and leaves the spindle
at rest. The clutch block plan will answer the same purpose, but I consider
the first description the most simple. The traverse motion may have its
power from different parts of the machine, which are well known to every
practical mechanic; -I-shall-therefore only describe it from the lying shaft,
giving motion to the front roller. Upon that shaft is an endless screw or worm
which carries a, wheel and a vertical shaft with a pinion on the lower end;
that pinion carries a face wheel revolving-upon a fixed stood; through-that.
faced wheel is a forked lying shaft, extending across to the other side of the.
framo below the two beams and through a slide fixed to the face of the
beam with a slit in-it-for-the-shaft to-slide-to-and-fro-sufficient to admit the:
pinion on that end to chango from the inside of another face wheel working
upon a single tooth while the end of the pinion shaft is sliding into.a semi-
circle hollows, which keeps the pinion getting round the tooth until it gets to
the outside of the face wheel; the pinion then carries the face wheel round
until it comes to another semicircle,, which causes the pinion to work itself
to the inside of the face wheel, 'as already described. When working out, by
the pinions working in and out, it reverses the face wheel; and by this traverso

page_text: wheel being made to deviate from a true circle, it will fill the bobbin more
in the middle or the cap at bottom, according to the deviation found necessary
in filling the bobbin or cap. Through this wheel is an axle or shaft, sup-
ported by bearings at both ends or otherways, and close to these bearings
is fixed a pinion upon the face wheel shaft which carries another face wheel,
and through it is a shaft lying along the spindle frame and supported by
bearings at both ends, and whereon it will be found necessary, if the frame be
long; upon that shaft (or cut out in the shaft) is a pinion some distance from
the bearing, according to the length of the frame; and each of these pinions
carries a spur wheel that revolves upon a stood attached to the sole of the
spindle frame, and that wheel works a rack up and down. That rack is fixed
to the bobbin lifter, which causes the yarn to extend exactly to the ends of
the bobbins more certain than by the present plan practised by levers or
otherways. A hermaphrodite of mule spindle or flyer: the flyer has a tube
attached or made in one piece with a warf upon it, and supported by two
bearings into a moveable flyer frame, and, by my traverse motion, above
described, it can be made to traverse to the best required motion and
distance. The motion changes the pinion on the first-mentioned vertical
shaft, and the distances change the pinions on the traverse wheel shaft. The
various ways of giving motion and speed are so well known, and so differently
applied, that I consider it sufficient to shew it practicable in one way. The
sizes of the wheels and number of teeth can only be regulated according to
circumstances. The flyer is placed nearly reverse to the present plan, and
will be found to be much easier pieced. Through this flyer is a mule spindle,
or similar to it, which rests upon a moveable rail or otherways to raise the
spindle similar to the winding machine well known to mechanics. The
simplicity of this movement for traversing the spindle needs no further
explanation than to say it moves up and down, or to and fro, while the flyer
is slowly moving towards the end of the spindle until the cop is full to the
top of the spindle, then it is taken off the spindle without changing either
the flyer or the spindle, as at present practised, and made ready for the shuttle.
If intended to spin with a bobbin, it is put upon the same spindle, and
the traversing of the spindle thrown out of gear, the flyer then traverses
regularly until the bobbin is full. The flyer and spindle, when pointed towards
the delivery of the roller, requires no guide whatever for the thread, neither
does the bobbin require to be retarded by the washers or otherways when
spinning fine yarn. As the ways are various, my improvements can be
obtained by the application of mechanical power; I think it proper to say,

page_text: if any part of them is adapted, as already described, that I shall consider it an
infringement upon my Patent.
In witness whereof, I, the said Archibald Thomson, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, the Twenty-ninth day of July, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and seven.