Year: 1888

page_text: I, MURRAY HINCKLEY SPEAR of 16 Charterhouse Buildings in the City of London,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
Owing to the expense and trouble attending the use of the ordinary ruling pens
used by printers for ruling a number of parallel lines an apparatus having a number
of steel discs, side by side, upon the same axis was devised but has had but slight
success from the fact that the steel being rigid would not accomodate itself to the paper
and would not absorb the ink consequently the discs would not carry sufficient ink to
produce good lines and printers ink could not be used, a kind of aniline ink or dye
being used instead.
Now by experiments I have found that by making the discs or rules of some
substance of a different nature from steel and which while presenting a sufficiently
rigid or inflexible surface to produce a good line will nevertheless give sufficiently to
accomodate inequalities of surface or material in the paper and will so far absorb or
"take" the ink that a proper supply can be carried by the disc or rule the difficulty
of the steel discs may be got over and a satisfactory result obtained. I do not bind
myself to any particular material but have obtained the best results from the " patent
vulcanized fibre" sold by Messrs. Mosses & Mitchell of 68 Chiswell Street,
London, E.C.

page_text: Improvements in Ruling Devices.
I, MURRAY HINCKLEY SPEAR, of 16 Charterhouse Buildings in the City of London,
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 :-
:-
Owing to the expense and trouble attending the use of the ordinary ruling pens
used by printers for ruling a number of parallel lines an apparatus having a number
of steel discs, side by side, upon the same axis was devised but has had but slight success
from the fact that the steel being rigid would not accomodate itself to the paper and
would not absorb the ink consequently the discs would not carry sufficient ink to
produce good lines, and printers ink could not be used, a kind of aniline ink or dye
being used instead.
Now by experiments I have found that by making the disc or rules of some substance
of a different nature from steel and which while presenting a sufficiently rigid or
inflexible surface to produce a good line will nevertheless give sufficiently to
accomodate inequalities of surface or material in the paper and will so far absorb or
"take" the ink that a proper supply can be carried by the disc or rule the difficulty
of the steel discs may be got over and a satisfactory result obtained.
It will at once appear that various materials may be used but the best for the
purpose which I have so far found is vulcanized fibre such as that sold by Messrs.
Mosses & Mitchell of 63 Chiswell Street, London, E.C., made sufficiently firm and
solid not to give too much while the lines are being ruled but sufficiently fibrous to
"take
or "hold" the printers ink which simple india-rubber will not do.
In the accompanying drawings Figs. 1 and are respectively a face and an edge
view of one of the discs and Fig. 3 is a view showing a series of the said discs arranged
for ruling purposes.
"
The sheet of vulcanized fibre or other material from which the discs A are made is
cut by a saw or otherwise into pieces of about the size of the finished discs. These
pieces are drilled to enable them to be placed on a mandrel or its equivalent so that
they may be turned. The said pieces are then either turned individually or
collectively and either on their permanent spindle or on a temporary spindle or
mandrel preferably to the shape shown on the accompanying drawings. The discs
may however be constructed in any other desirable manner. The discs A so formed as
shown at Fig. 3 are secured upon the spindle B between the fixed collar B' and the
screwed nut C and the said spindle can be rotated by any convenient means. The
discs A may however be secured upon their spindles in any convenient manner other
than that shown at figure 3.
The before mentioned arrangement of discs is what I use for ruling paper in the
direction of its travel through the ruling or printing machine but when it is necessary

page_text: to rule the paper transversely to the direction of its travel through the machine I
employ straight rules to which I have previously referred these being constructed
preferably of vulcanized fibre and mounted in any desired number in a suitable frame
or the like.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
A rule or disc for ruling purposes made of vulcanized fibre or equivalent material
which while sufficiently fibrous to take the ink is sufficiently firm to form a good line.
MURRAY H. SPEAR.