IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD AND MEANS OF SECURING AND DISCHARGING THE CONTENTS OF PIPES AND VESSELS
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Samuel Middleton at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 14th November
1865.
I, SAMUEL MIDDLETON, of No. 19, Shoemaker Row, in the City of
London, Shoe Maker, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD AND MEANS OF SECURING AND DISCHARGING THE
CONTENTS OF PIPES AND VESSELS," to be as follows:-
I make a tap in manner herein-after described, and apply it to an
orifice in a pipe or any vessel used for containing liquids, as a bottle, a
cask, or a vat, in which or from which it is desired to secure or to discharge
liquids.
The tap is formed of wood, glass, metal, or any hard material, and either of
the same material as the vessel to which the said tap is fixed or of a different
material. The socket of the tap is in the form of a frustrum of a cone with
one end about th less than the other in diameter. The core is formed like a
similar frustrum of a cone of india-rubber fitting the socket with the modi-
fications herein-after described. In the india-rubber is cut a hole in the form
of a rectangular parallelopiped of the following dimensions and positions:-
1stly, a length reaching from the small end of the india-rubber for ths

page_text: of its length; 2ndly, a length at right angles to the firstly-mentioned length
of the diameter of the orifice through the tap through which the liquid is to
run; and, 3rdly, a length perpendicular to both the former of the lengths of
rds or thereabouts of the diameter of the said india-rubber core at the narrow
end.
A handle of metal is made to fit the parallelopipedal hole and fill it up,
and to project from the end of the core in the form of an ordinary tap handle,
spreading out at the two ends over the edge of the socket. A channel is cut
up the central line of the tap from the part which is to be connected with the
vessel to the point where the core is reached. The channel can then proceed
straight on through the core and have its discharge at the top of the tap, or
can turn at right angles and have its discharge at the end of the core. The
channel cuts in its course the part of the handle in the parallopipedal hole in
the india-rubber at right angles to its largest side when the handle is so
turned as to discharge the liquid. The metal is further cut out so as to leave
the two sides of the piece of metal like two small rods, and these, notwith-
standing the former descriptiou, are long enough to go through to the end of
the core.
The form of the socket is slightly varied from the form of a frustrum of
a cone by the inner surface round the end of the orifice from the interior of
the bottle being slightly raised so as to lessen the diameter of the socket at
that part, or the form of the core is slightly varied from the form of the
frustrum of a cone by the surface situated over the orifice coming from the
interior of the bottle when the tap is turned off being raised so as to increase
the diameter of the core at that place. Either of these arrangements bas
the effect of causing the india-rubber core to press barder on the said orifice
than if no such arrangement existed.
In arranging the parts of the tap the india-rubber core is put into the
socket from the larger end of the socket, and the metal handle and small rods
thrust in at the other end until the small rods reach through the india-rubber,
which they penetrate, and the ends of the rods are then fastened on the out-
side of the india-rubber at the larger end by means of a circular plate through
which the small rods project, and by solder or any other appropriate mode of
fixing. The parts of the edge of the socket under the two ends of the handle
when the tap is turned off is slightly thickened or raised, so that the core is
drawn up more tightly into the socket when turned off; this arrangement
better prevents the orifice from discharging the liquid of the vessel.
Instead of india-rubber the following articles may be used with advantage
in certain cases:-Gutta percha, wood, glass, wood covered with leather or

page_text: tanned skin of calves' tail, or any substance capable of adaptation. Other
substances besides metal can be used in the place of metal handle, and rods of
nearly any description, as bone or wood.