IMPROVEMENTS IN BRACELETS, SCARF RINGS, FINGER RINGS, AND GLOVE FASTENERS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William West at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 5th November 1880.
WILLIAM WEST, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Manufacturing
Jeweller. "IMPROVEMENTS IN BRACELETS, SCARF RINGS, FINGER RINGS, AND
GLOVE FASTENERS.”
My Invention consists of the improvements hereinafter described, which
improvements are especially applicable to bracelets and scarf rings, but are also
applicable to finger rings and glove fasteners.
I will describe my Invention as applied to a bracelet.
A bracelet, as ordinarily constructed, consists of two semi-elliptical parts jointed
together, the free ends of the jointed parts being provided with a spring snap
fastening for fixing the bracelet in its closed position after it has been put upon the
wrist.
In one
That
In making a bracelet, according to my Invention, I make it as usual of two semi-
elliptical parts, but instead of connecting them together by a joint I connect them
in the following manner :-I make the two parts of the bracelet hollow.
end of each of the hollow parts I fix a flat sheet steel or other metallic spring, of a
width suitable to enter and slide freely in the open end of the other part.
is, one end of each part carries a spring which enters the opposite end of the other.
part. When the two parts are closed upon one another their opposed ends are in
contact, the spring carried by each part having passed into the other part. When
it is wished to separate the parts for the purpose of permitting the hand to pass
through the bracelet, either in putting it on or taking it off the wrist, it is only
necessary to apply gentle pressure in a direction suitable to separate the parts,
when the said parts recede from one another by the sliding of the springs fixed to
each part out of the hollow of the other part, the two parts of the bracelet being
connected by the flat springs. In order to close the bracelet it is only necessary to
press the two parts together, when the spring of one part sliding into the other
part the two parts of the bracelet are brought together. In order to give the
required resistance to the motion of the parts, and thereby prevent their working
loosely, I prefer to make each spring of two nearly parallel pieces of thin sheet
steel or other elastic metal, or of one strip of thin sheet steel or elastic metal folded
upon itself at its middle. The two parallel parts of the spring are so curved that
their free ends tend to open, so that when pressed together and inserted in the

page_text: hollow parts in which they slide their tendency to open produces the required
resistance to their motion.
In order to limit the opening of the bracelet and to give a slight resistance to
opening when the bracelet is closed, I make a rounded projection on each spring
near its end, and make depressions at such points in the hollows in which the
springs slide that the said projections take into one or other of the said depressions,
when the two parts of the bracelet are in their open or closed position, thereby
limiting the extent to which the two parts of the bracelet can separate, and offering
a slight resistance to the opening of the closed bracelet.
The application of my improvements to scarf rings, finger rings, and glove
fasteners, differs in no essential respect from its application to a bracelet as herein-
before described. When my improvements are applied to finger rings, the placing
of the ring on the finger and its removal therefrom are effected without the
inconvenience and pain frequently attending the placing on the finger and the
removal therefrom of rings of the ordinary kind.