AN IMPROVED NEEDLE APPLICABLE TO SEWING MACHINES AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1884

page_text: COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
İ, ROBERT BARLOW, of Norfolk House Dalston in the County of Middlesex,
Surgeon do hereby declare the nature of my invention for AN IMPROVED NEEDLE
APPLICABLE TO SEWING MACHINES AND OTHER PURPOSES and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement :-
The object of my invention is to produce a needle capable of being threaded
by any part of a thread, cord, wire or other line instead of by an end as is
customary.
I carry out my invention by constructing the eye of any kind of needle with a
discontinuity of its wall or side at whatever point may be most suitable for the
nature of the work to be done by the needle. I thus form a simple or double hook
which may be protected at the opening or gap, if need be, by a spring or extension
of its side. Through the gap thus existing a thread may with ease be pulled or
pressed into the eye; and if the gap be suitably aligned the thread will not easily
escape from the eye. In sewing-machine needles I prefer that the line of the gap
shall make an acute angle with the axis of the needle. In ordinary sewing needles
I prefer that the thread shall be able to be passed into the eye at the extremity
of the needle and in some cases the closing of the eye may be likened to the action
of a split ring. I also in some cases of sewing-machine needles employ a split or
double stem, or I carry the gap downward for some distance through the stem of
the needle into the eye or I carry the outer portion of the wall upward so as to
make a shield or guard against the entrance of threads or fibres from the fabric
being sewn. The edges of the gaps are suitably rounded so as not to catch any of
the said threads or fibres.
In order that my Invention may be the better understood I append hereto
drawings of several forms of my improved needle for Sewing Machine and hand
use, reference being had in the following description to the letters and figures
marked thereon.
Figures 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5, are various forms of machine Sewing needles with side gap
or entry for the admission of the thread at any part in its length.

page_text: Figures 6 & 7 are hand sewing needles with similar side entry into the heads of
the said needles and for the same purpose.
Figure 1 shews the two side elevations of a sewing machine needle in which a
plain gap a is cut through the side wall of the eye A of the needle thus admitting
the thread passed sidewards at any part in its length into the eye A of the needle
where it is retained by the upper and lower hooks still formed by the severed side
wall of the eye. The outer edges of the severed wall of the eye are rounded off so
as to prevent them readily catching the fibre of the fabric in passing to and fro
in the ordinary sewing operations.
I find from practice that even in the aforesaid simple form, where the movement
of the needle is perfectly true and rectilinear the said gap in the eye of the needle
does not catch or take up the fibres of the fabric or tissue to be sewn,
Still less is this possible in the case of the needle as shewn in Figure 2, in which
I preferably make the slit b through the wall of the eye A of the needle aligned
in a direction transverse to that in which the thread B lies in the eye of the needle.
In this case the lengths of the retaining hooks on the slit side of the eye are as
long as the eye itself, and if the points of the said hooks are slightly depressed
towards the axis of the needle they have no tendency to seize the fibres of the
tissue being sewn, whose direction also crosses the aligned slit 6 transversely.
Alternatively in Figure 3 I shew the plain transverse slit as in Figure 1, but pro-
tected by an external spring tongue C which extends so far up the needle that its
upper lip D, which is turned outwards for convenience in threading the needle,
does not pass through the fabric at all.
In Figuro 4 I shew a further alternative in which the slit E, by which the thread
may be introduced into the eye A sidewards is carried some distance up the stem of
the needle and cut through the solid material thereof. The upper issue of the
slit E may be carried so far up the needle that it does not enter the material that
is being sewn.
A further alternative is shown in Figure 5 in which the upper part of the needle
above the eye A is divided by a coutral slit F into two parts G G¹. The thread
may be inserted through this slit before the needle is inserted into the machine,
the slit being afterwards securely closed by the usual method of attachment of the
needle to the inachine.
It is essential in all Sewing machine needles, that the point should be in con-
tinuation of the axis of the needle in order to give the greatest strength to the
needle in its downward thrust through the material which is being sewn, I
therefore cause the point of the needle (as shewn in Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4) to be
made, more or less, in continuation of the axis of the uncut wall of the eye of
the needle (this uncut wall of the eye, becoming in this part of the needle, the true
shaft) whereby greater strength to my needle, when in operation, is obtained. The
eye of the needle I also prefer should be placed somewhat to one side of the axis
of the needle (and not centrally as is usual in ordinary machine needles) so that
the uncut wall of the said eye may be made the stouter, and the cut portion
thereof correspondingly less in substance as shewn in Figures 1, 2, 3 & 4.
In ordinary hand sowing needles 1 prefer that the thread should be passed into
the elongated eye, at the extremity of the needle as in the examples shewn in
Figures 6 & 7 in which the closing of the eye may be likened to the action of a
split-ring. In figure 6 the split divides the head of the needle H entering the eye h
of the needle (through which the thread may be introduced at any part in its
length) as in a plane perpendicular to the face of the needle eye, the entering edge &
through which the thread is introduced being sufficiently rounded to make that
entry easy. In Figure 7 the slit in the eye of the needle H is in a plane parallel
to the axis of the needle or to the face of the needle eye, the exterior edge of
the lapping points being slightly recessed below the body of the needle to
prevent them catching the fibre of the sewn tissue as the needle passes through
in the ordinary operation of sewing.

page_text: Invention
Having now particularly described & ascertained the nature of my
and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that which I claim is
The construction of a needle with an eye into which the thread or line can be
passed through the substance of the needle itself whether at the side or either
extremity of the eye, substantially as described and shewn in the Drawings.
Dated this 6th day of December 1884.