Improvements in Gill-boxes Used in the Preparation of Textile
Year: 1886

page_text: Date of Application, 17th Nov., 1886
Complete Left, 17th Aug., 1887
Complete Accepted, 18th Nov., 1887
RESERVE
Improvements in Gill-boxes Used in the Preparation of Textile
JULES ALBERT BERLY, Civil Engineer and Electrician of No. 3 Deronda Road
Herne Hill London S.E. do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
The mechanism of gill-boxes for straightening out textile materials is liable to
frequent and costly repairs entailing stoppages and corresponding losses of production;
it is, besides, so difficult of illustration in a working drawing that the work of the
fittor cannot be indicated in a sufficiently plain manner and its tracing and fitting up
have to be confided to none but experienced workmen.
My Invention has for its object to considerably reduce the aforesaid inconveniences
and at the same time to secure to every part conditions of rational performance of
their work.
It consists principally, in limiting the fall and rise of the hackle-bar to the half of
the distance which they have to travel so that the total vertical distance is travelled
over in two distinct journeys separated by an interval of rest.
In that manner, when a hackle-bar is brought into the intermediate position, it
remains stationary there until the following one, actuated by the same mechanism,
comes into its room, pushing it vertically until it is lodged into the scrow which
receives it.
By this means the cams formerly used may be dispensed with, the necessary motion
being obtained merely through the endings of the screws thread; there is therefore no
projection outside the cylindrical body of the screw. The hackle-bar receives its
motion direct from the bottom of the thread and displaces the one situate in the
intermediate position; and as during that vertical journey the contact between them
is never interrupted, the jerks and rattling noiso, so characteristic of the working of

page_text: ordinary gill-boxes, is entirely done away with. The motion of the hackle-bar is a
kind of chain action.
The suppression of the cams allows of a comparatively important increase in the
thickness of the front plates guiding the screws's ends as it is not any more necessary
to retain the circular room previously required for the passage of the cams. This
thickness may be increased twofold. The spring guiding the hackle-bar in its descent
is also done away with as the latter is better guided by a recess provided in the
thickness of the front plates, and I use, instead, a flat steel ribbon the forging of
which can be easily effected, and whose duty merely consists in pressing the hackle-
bar against the end of the top-way so as to prevent it falling by its own weight in
the hollow of the return screw. The dimensions of all the parts of the mechanism
are ruled by the height of the hackle-bar's head.
The said height corresponds to exactly the half of the vertical distanco between the
centers of the screws and it is also equal to the two thirds of the external diameter of
the body of the said screws.
Two chamfers are cut out of each end or head of the hackle-bars so that any one of
the latter occupying the intermediate position above mentioned would bear, through
the said chamfers, upon the cylindrical bodies of the four screws and thus held between
them without the possibility of any vertical play. The bottom end of the screw's
thread is cut in the direction of a radius and strikes the hackle-bar chamfer normally,
causing its vertical displacement.
The diameter of the screws may, by the adoption of my system, be increased
although the displacements may remain small; this increase in the diameter of the
screws offers, for a given pitch, the advantages of a less inclined thread which facilitates
the gearing in and out of the hackle-bars' heads and the said screws.
My system also allows of all the gill-boxes of a same factory or in the same industry
to be uniformly constructed since, by the adoption of a maximum diameter of screws,
all the machines are brought to a state of perfect strength notwithstanding the
important reduction of the rises and falls, that is to say of the vertical travelling
speed, of the hackle-bars. This affords a ready means of increasing the working
speed of the machine with a view to an increase in the production.
My system is applicable to any combination of screws; for instance one of the
screws, either the driving or the return one may be a single thread one and its partner
may be either a single, double or treble etc. thread one so that the number of
revolutions of both scrows may be equal or in the ratio of one to two, or one to
three, etc.
The vertical distance between the centers of the higher and lower screws, instead
of being limited to the double of the height of the hackle-bar's head, may, without
inconvenients, be increased by one more times the height of a hackle-bar's head.
This would entail a greater complication in the machine and at the same time cause
a greater number of hackle-bars to lay idle.
+
20
..
4000

page_text: JULES ALBERT BERLY, Civil and Electrical Engineer 3 Deronda Road Herne Hill
London S.E. a communication from Gustave Riche, Mechanical Engineer of
56 ruo d'Inkermann, Roubaix, in the Republic of France, do hereby declare the nature
of this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
doscribed and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
The special mechanism of gill-boxes, as generally constructed, principally consists
of a set of screws actuating the hackle-bars or combs in their to and fro inotion.
The other parts, such as the feeding and drawing rollers, the winders, etc., are
common to almost all the machines intended for the preparation of textile materials
and are strongly built and easy of repairs.
This is not the case with the screws and their cams, the pathes, combs, hackle-bars,
springs, etc., or, in other words, the parts intended for the straightening or
parallelization of the fibres or filaments during the process of drawing.
But the drawing of the material through the combs constantly tends to upset the
bars the vertical position of which is only secured through the fitting of their heads
into the threads of the screws.
Calling A the height of the points or needles above the body of the bar, height
which is variable according to the quantity of material which it is intended to deal
with, it is obvious that it is logical to establish the dimensions of the various parts
according to the said height A as also according to the strain P to which the bar is
subjected. I have from experience found that this strain P is expressed by the
formula P = in which K represents the hourly production in kilogrammes,
and V the sliding speed, per second, of the material in the combs; this speed itself
being the difference between the circumferential speed of the drawing roller, leather
included and the speed proper of the bars.
2 K
Let us suppose that in a machine producing 20 kilogrammes per hour the speed
of the drawing roller's leather be 0,325 per second and the speed proper of
the bars be 0,075; the strain exerted on the bar will be, very approximately:
2 x 20
P
0.250
-= 160 kilogrammes.
But in a well constructed hackle-bar, the height of its head B should always be
proportioned to A and consequently to the strain P so as to possess sufficient bearing
and fitting surfaces into the screw's threads. In this manner, the screw threads
themselves would be less subject to wear and the whole mechanism would be in more
satisfactory conditions as regards stability.

page_text: I will, further on, explain why these proportions cannot be observed in cam gill-
boxes and how the result is too small a height of the bar's heads B and too small a
diameter D of the body of the screws.
These are not the only disadvantages of the cam mechanism, the manufacture of the
screws and the cams themselves offering great difficulties in this respect that they are
not rational. It is indeed one of the rare mechanical combinations in which no
details can be drafted accurately enough to enable a fitter to correctly understand
the work which has to be executed. The reason of this is that the screws and the
cames are composed of skewed surfaces not always cutting each other according to
intersections so that the working drawings, with three projections are insufficient to
correctly illustrate the outside shapes of those parts.
The result is a particular mode of proceeding special to each fitter; the parts are
traced more or less accurately by means of templets and the remainder is a matter
of guess-work. The fact is that this state of things has created a new and imperious
want; for Gill-boxes cannot be used without not ordinary mechanics but without
special fitters experts in gill-box work.
All goes well as long as the new screws produced by that special workman remains
in good working conditions but as soon as the bars or the threads of the screws (which
are hardened in the cementing trough) show any sign of wear the catching process
begins and so does the series of frequent and expensive repairs together with the loss
of production entailed by stoppages, etc.,
It scarcely happens that the same workınan who turned out a set of scrows is called
upon to repair it. So that the workman who will be intrusted with the work of
replacing a broken cam or any other part will do it according to his own fashion and
from his own templets, and thus aggravate any discrepancies which might have
originally existed. This becomes still worse when one of the four conjugated screws
has to be either replaced or repaired which necessitates its being annealed.
I have therefore endeavoured to construct a rational mechanism of gill-box, more in
accordance with the laws of mechanics.
I have succeeded in simplifying the existing arrangements and bringing them
down to be easily handled and understood by any ordinary workman; all the parts
are robust and their working conditions are such that the speed of the machine can
be notably accelerated.
My Invention principally consists in limiting the rise and fall of the hackle-bars to
the half of the distance which they have to travel so that the total vertical distance is
travelled over in two distinct periods or journeys separated by an interval of rest.
In that manner, when a hackle-bar is brought into its intermediate position it
remains there until the following one, actuated by the same agency, comes into its
room pushing it vertically until it lodges itself into the screw which receives it.
By this means, the cams formerly used can be dispensed with, the necessary motion
being obtained merely through the endings of the screws's thread.
There is therefore no projection outside the cylindrical body of the screw.
The
hacklo-bar receives its motion direct from the bottom of the thread and displaces
the one situate in the intermediate position; and as during that vertical journey the
contact between them is never interrupted, the jerking and the rattling noiso, so
characteristic of the working of ordinary gill-boxes are entirely done away with. The
motion of the hackle-bars is of a kind of chain' action.
The travelling of the bars is mathematical and the leverage of the elevating part is
reduced by more than one half.
In the accompanying drawing, Fig. 1 is an end view, Fig. 2 an elevation and
Fig. 3 a profile of my improved gill-box; Fig. 4 is a view of a part shown separately
so as to leave Fig. 1 clearer.
In Fig. 1 the four screws V. V' and the bars B. B', B" are so made that the
vertical distance between the two screws is equal to the 3 of the external diameter of
the threaded part D of the screws and that the height B of the head of each bar is
exactly the half of this said vertical distance or equal to the of the diameter of the
screws.

page_text: The ends of the bars heads are chamfered as shown in the drawing.
The stop or end of the thread F of each screw is cut in a radial line O a of the
screw so as to normally strike the bar's chamfer.
If we now suppose that the screws V turns of a quarter of a revolution the
radius Oa will come in O a' and the bar B will go down to B', its four chamfers
bearing almost exactly upon the plain cylindrical part of the screw's thread for, in
this position, the tangents presented by the chamfer lines almost merge into the
cylindrical body of the screw, as shewn in Fig. 1.
In this intermediato position the bar is maintained in front by the plate P; at the
back by the end of the top way C; and on the right and left by a recoss which has
been cut out in each of the plates P, as shewn in Fig. 3. But we have just said that
it bears, by its four chamfers upon the four screws so that it will romain fixed and
well guided in this position during the whole revolution of the scrows; it is, so to
speak, enchased into a kind of parallelipedic caso the corners of which have been
taken off (chamfered) and represent a moveable partition round the centre of each
screw and which act as smooth friction guides upon the chamfers of the bar's heads.
If the rotating action continues the end radius of the thread F will come back in Oa
and act upon the following bar which, owing to the forward motion of the thread
will, at that moment, be exactly superposed to the bar B, now stationary.
The lower screw V' is so cut that, just at that moment, the hollow of one thread is
exactly opposite the bar B' as indicated in Fig. 2.
It will thus be seen that the bar B (Fig. 1), in its desconsional motion, presses
upon the bar B' so as to gear it into the thread of the return screw V'.
I have omitted, in Fig. 2, to show the bars which are engaged into the screws as it
might have created confusion and provented showing the bottoms F of the screw's
threads; I have even represented the bottom of the thread of the return screw half a
turn in advance so as to avoid representing it in dotted lines and thereby more clearly
shewing the details of the mechanism.
The ascensional motion of the bars and their introduction into the forward
screws V take place in exactly the same fashion as in the case of the descensional
one; but as the guide-plates P do not exist in the rear and are replaced by a simple
square T the guide provided by the recesses of these plates is replaced, in the
ascensional motion, by two small guides S fixed by means of the screws rr upon the
supports or screw casings M so as to present a guiding surface c d similar to that of
the recesses in the plates P.
This guide is shown in Fig. 4.
This arrangement allows of doing away with the front spring used for guiding the
bars in their ascensional motion that is to say that it is no moro necessary to hollow
out the bars in order to make room for the spring's guide as well as for the catch
which used to be cut in the back end of the top pathway C.
The result is an increase in the strength of the bar and at the same time a
simplification of the mechanism since the spring X is nothing more than a flat bund
the function of which is to press the bar against the extremity of the top pathway so
as to prevent the said bar from falling by its own weight into the hollow of the return
screw.
When speaking of the proportions between the various parts I said that the
vertical distance between the centres of the forward and return screws was equal to
the of the diameter of the body of the screws; reciprocally, this diameter is equal
to the of the said vertical distance and the height of the bar's heads are equal to
the half of the said distance. These proportions are well in accord with the exerted
strains and conduct to the adoption of diameters of screws generally larger than
those adopted until now, for a given height of teeth; the screws are stronger and
the slanting, for a given pitch is very much smaller so that it considerably facilitates
the introduction of the bars' heads into the threads either in their ascending
or descending motion and this without any exaggerate oblique cutting of the top
pathway.
At the same time, the vertical distance of the screws increasing in proportion of

page_text: their diameter allows of the top way being kept at a height equal to the total height
of the bar's head as illustrated in Fig. 2, which arrangement constitutes a much
better guiding than used to be the case in the old mechanisms.
These favourable conditions cannot be obtained in the old cam gill-box as the
increase in the diameter of the screws would forcibly lead to their distance (and
therefore the ascending and descending journeys of the bars) being correspondingly
increased as well as the overhanging of the cams which are already in bad working
conditions.
The reason of this dilemna is that in the ordinary gill-box, the complete displace-
ment of a bar is effected in one single operation whereas in my improved apparatus
it is effected in two operations without any intermediate parts between the screws and
the bars; i.e., without cams.
In Fig. 2, I have supposed the top screws to be fine double-threaded ones and the
bottom ones single-threaded ones of the same pitch; in this case, the pinions_keyed
on these screws, in order to drive each other must be such that the number of
revolutions of the lower screws be the double of that of the top ones.
I have insisted upon this particular case in order to demonstrate the facility with
which my improved apparatus can be adapted to all kind of threads with which the
forward and return screws may be provided; I indeed consider this feature as one of
the most advantageous for obtaining satisfactory results for, when changing screw,
the bar always remains inclined at a same angle and when running on the lower path
never does so on the edge but always truly flat.
A very nearly analogous result would be obtained by cutting a fine single-
thread on the top screws and, on the lower ones, a single-thread of a pitch equal to
at least one and a half that of the top screws. In effect, according to Fig. 1, the
top screw makes of one turn from the time it receives a first bar in the bottom
of the thread to that at which a second bar presents itself. In order to fix the ideas,
1 will assume that the pitch of the top screw is 12 millimetres; that of the bottom
or lower one will be 18 millimetres and, after the top screw having turned the of
one revolution, a bar engaged into the lower screw would have travelled
3 x 18
= 13.5. But as in practice the thickness of a bar is equal to the
pitch of the top screw minus 1 millimetre-11 millimetres in this case-there follows
that the first bar will have left free room for the succeeding bar plus a play
of 13.5 112.5 millimetres which is quite sufficient for securing a free descent.
In this particular case, the top and the lower screws are assumed to rotate at the
same rate of speed.
4
Or yet while the top screws might be cut with a fine single or double-thread,
the lower ones could be made with a variable pitch so as to equal that of the top
screws for the first half turn, then go increasing up to the middle of the length of
the screw and decreasing in the same ratio for the other half until it finally again
equals that of the top screw during the last half turn of the screw which corresponds
to the raising of the bar. In this manner the bar would remain at the same angle
when changing screw and this arrangement might prove the means of economizing a
few bars. But the angle of the returning bar, when running at full speed, would
be very much inclined as is the case in existing gill-boxes with accelerated
return motion and the edges of the said bar would be rubbing against the
lower path.
Whatever may be the adopted combinations of pitches I insist upon this very
important fact that in my improved apparatus the inlet and outlet of the shackle-bars
into and out of the screws are always effected without having to obliquely cut the
thread as the penetration is completed within a quarter of a turn. On the other hand
the tracing of the thread's bottom becomes an easy matter since it is always done at
90 degrees instead of at obtuse angles the value of which is not determined and is
left for the workman's appreciation.
The vertical distance between the top and lower screws instead of being limited to
the of the diameter of the screws might be increased, without inconvenience, by the

page_text: height of one or more bars. But such an arrangement would not prove of any
practical value since it would complicate the mechanism and necessitate the use of a
larger number of bars.
My improved gill-box is possessed of the following advantages
1
1° Screws. Increase in the diameter of the body of the screw and consequent
reduction of wear for a given thickness of bar that is to say for a given pitch the
thread will always be less slanting.
20-Hackle-Bars.-Suppression of the recess made for the spring; the thickness
of the bar remains unaltered, up to the heads; the result is an increase in
strength.
3° Cams. These intermediate parts, the causes of the destruction of the gill-
boxes and of expensive repairs are done away with.
4°-Ways. The top pathway has a greater height and constitutes a much safer
guard or guide for the descending bar.
5° Front plate. The thickness of these plates is doubled and they thus constitute
much safer guides for the ends of the screws.
6° Spring-Instead of being a difficult forging is simplified into a mere strip of
steel of a uniform thickness throughout.
.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention and in what manner the said is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is:
1° The suppression of the cams substantially as hereinbefore described and
ascertained.
•
2° The vertical propulsion of the bars by means of the direct action of the
ends of the screws's thread or of any piece adapted in the hollow of the samo
thread and effecting the same result substantially as hereinbefore described and
illustrated.
3°-The complete guiding of the bars, substantially as herein before described and
illustrated.
4°-The suppression of the recesses into the bars as described and ascertained.
5° Effecting the vertical ascent or descent of the hackle-bars in two or more
periods or journeys, instead of in one as practised in the cam Gill-boxes substantially
as horeinbefore described and illustrated.
London Seventeenth August 1887.