Improvements in Hop Kilns and Bagging Stores.
Year: 1892

page_text: Date of Application, 22nd Mar., 1892
Complete Specification Left. 19th Dec., 1892-Accepted, 4th Feb., 1893
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Hop Kilns and Bagging Stores.
I, ALFRED HETHERINGTON of Alton in the County of Southampton, Engineer,
do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
When hops are kiln-dried they are apt to be somewhat broken and damaged by
the shovels used to remove them from the drying floor and to shovel them into the
bagging machine. My invention relates to means of preventing this damage. For
this purpose, I make the kiln floor consist of a sheet of suitable pervious fabric
which is strained across the kiln by suitable weights and supported where necessary.
Or I place such a sheet over the ordinary perforated floor of the kiln. On this
sheet the hops are laid in a layer of suitable thickness, and dried in the usual way,
When they are dried, the sheet is drawn to one side bringing the hops with it, and
as the sheet is bent downwards over a roller or wound upon a barrel, the dried hops
fall gently off it on to the floor of the store in which they can be bagged in the
usual way. The floor instead of being a continuous fabric may consist of a number
of pervious panels jointed together. Furthermore, instead of shovelling the dried
hops in the store into the bags, I make the store in the form of a hopper with a
continuous apron travelling below it, by which the hops are conveyed to the bagging
machine.
Dated this 22nd day of March 1892.
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Hop Kilns and Bagging Stores.
I, ALFRED HETHERINGTON, of Alton, in the County of Southampton, Engineer,
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is
to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:
When hops are kiln dried they are apt to be somewhat broken and damaged by
the shovels used to remove them from the drying floor and to shovel them into the
bagging machine.
My invention relates to means of preventing this damage. For this purpose I
make the kiln floor consist of a sheet of hair cloth or other suitable pervious fabric
which is strained across the kiln it may be by suitable weights and supported where
necessary. Or I place such a sheet over the ordinary perforated floor of the kiln.
On this sheet the hops are laid in a layer of suitable thickness, and dried in the
usual way.
When they are dried, the sheet is drawn to one side bringing the hops
with it, and as the sheet is bent downwards over a roller or wound upon a barrel,
the dried hops fall gently off it on to the floor of the store in which they can be
bagged in the usual way. The floor instead of being a continuous fabric may
consist of a number of pervious panels jointed together.
Fig. 1 of the accompanying drawings is a longitudinal section, Fig. 2 is a transverse
section, Fig. 3 is an end view and Fig. 4 is a plan of a rectangular hop kiln arranged
according to my invention, Fig. 5 is a longitudinal section, Fig. 6 a transverse
section, Fig. 7 an end view and Fig. 8 a plan of a circular hop kiln arranged
according to my invention. In all these figures like reference letters are employed
as far as possible to designate corresponding parts.
A is a sheet of porous fabric, which is usually woven of hair, it is kept stretched

page_text: transversely by iron bars a fixed to its under side, these resting and running on iron
or wood bars a¹ which are supported at intervals by girders B. The rear end of the
fabric A. may terminate in a bar connected by ropes to a pair of winch barrels Con
one axis as shewn in Figs. 1 and 2, or it may be wound on a roller C as shewn in
Figs. 5 and 8. The front end of A is attached to a roller D on which it is wound
by working a crank handle D' turning a pulley connected by a band with a pulley
on the roller D. E is a brush extending the whole length of the roller D and
caused by loaded levers E¹ to bear against the surface of the fabric A. as it is wound
on the roller D so as to clean off such hops as may adhere to it. As the fabric A
in order to be wound on a roller must be of rectangular form, I provide over the
segments of a circular kiln which are not covered by the fabric A segmental
frames F covered with pervious fabric, or it may be with perforated sheet metal,
and hinge these frames along their straight sides so that they can be turned up as
indicated by the dotted lines F in Fig. 6 to deliver the hops which are dried upon
them on to the fabric A from which, as it is wound on the roller D, the dried hops
fall on to the floor G, whence the dried hops can be shovelled into bags. In cases
where a bagging machine is employed, I arrange an apron to travel transversely.
along the floor G immediately in front of the roller D so that the hops received on
this apron are conveyed by it to the bagging machine, all shovelling being thus
avoided. The travelling apron may be wound on a roller like A or it may be an
endless apron carried on rollers at each end.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. In a hop kiln, a floor consisting of pervious fabric which receives on it the hops
to be dried, and, when they are dried, delivers them as it is wound on or over a
roller, substantially as described.
2. In combination with a hop kiln having a floor of pervious fabric operating as
set forth in the preceding claim, a travelling apron arranged to receive the hops
delivered from the fabric and transfer them to a bagging machine, substantially as
described.
Deted this 17th dox of Donanıhan 1802
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.