IMPROVEMENTS IN STEERING Apparatus
Year: 1854

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Carr, of Liverpool, in the County of Lan-
caster, Sharebroker, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN STEERING
Apparatus."
Sealed the 30th January 1855, and dated the 28th August 1854.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thomas Carr at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 28th
August 1854.
I, THOMAS CARR, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Sharebroker,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
STEERING APPARATUS" to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to a novel arrangement of steering gear for ships,
involving the use of a screw action. The steering or hand wheel is mounted
opposite end of which carries a chain
as usual upon a horizontal shaft, the
drum. Beneath this primary shaft is a secondary or screw shaft, having also
upon it a chain drum, driven from the drum on the primary shaft by two
chains. This screw shaft is fitted with a traversing nut, suitably guided,
having a connecting rod passing from it to the tiller, the tiller being disposed
so as to be athwart ship or nearly so, when the rudder is in a line with the
keel. The two chains connecting the drums are arranged so as to be cach
coiled several times round each drum, being fastened at the ends; hence, when

page_text: the steering wheel is turned, one chain uncoils from one drum, and is wound
upon the other. To remove the objections arising from the shocks of the water
acting upon steering apparatus of the screw kind, springs or buffer apparatus
are attached between the steering wheel and rudder head. Such elastic media
may be conveniently and effectively placed at the two ends of the screw.
Under another form of steering apparatus, the screw movement is entirely
dispensed with, the action being obtained by the use of an eccentric instead.
This eccentric is mounted upon.a .vertical. spindle, and its strap has a short
rod passing. to a joint pin on the tiller. The motion. of the steering wheel is
communicated to the eccentric spindle through the medium of bevil wheels;
or this may be accomplished by the agency of a rope or chain barrel, the ends
of the rope being rove through side blocks, and then made fast to a lever or
quadrant, fixed to the eccentric or to the eccentric shaft. The eccentric is
made large, so as to communicate a considerable stroke with but little turning,
and instead of an eccentric a cam or a portion of a cam may be used. The
steering wheel is made with a weighted rim, so that in some cases it may act
as a fly.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Thomas Carr in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
21st February 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
CARR, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Sharebroker, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, in the eighteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Thomas Carr, Her especial license that I, the said Thomas Carr,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Thomas Carr, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire-
land, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN STEERING APPARATUS," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
Thomas Carr, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, should

page_text: particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Thomas Carr, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement
and accompanying Drawings (that is to say):-
My Invention relates to arrangements and mechanism for working the
rudders of vessels for the purpose of steering them, its object being a simple
arrangement of mechanism through which the requisite movements may be
easily imparted to the rudder, but through which forces acting upon the
rudder (arising from the water striking against it) will be prevented from
reacting, or in which the reaction of the rudder through the mechanism by
which motion is imparted to it will be permitted, but impeded so that, by
giving way slightly to heavy impulses, shocks and strains prejudicial to the
mechanism and resulting from too great rigidity will be avoided. In my
Provisional Specification, duly recorded on the Twenty-eighth day of August,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, I referred
to arrangements of mechanism described as the first and second part of my
Invention, and one described as the third part of my Invention for carrying the
objects above mentioned into effect, but have since the filing thereof discovered
that the arrangement described as the third part of my Invention is the most
simple and effective. I, therefore, make no claim in respect to those particular
arrangements referred to by the said Provisional Specification, and described
therein as the first and second parts of my Invention. My Invention consists
in the application, adaptation, and arrangement of an excentric, cam, or their
equivalents, but by preference the excentric, as a means through which the
requisite motions may be conveyed to rudders, and which, I believe, is the one
which will answer best for effecting the objects herein-before mentioned, the
adaptation of which to this purpose is generally explained as follows:-I mount
an excentric with its axis on a vertical stud or shaft, and fit it with a strap
and short rod, jointing the end of the latter with the end of the tiller.
the shaft of the steering wheel I impart a revolving or oscillating movement
to the excentric, by means of toothed wheel work, or by the arrangement
commonly applied (a barrel and chain or rope) for giving motion to the tiller,
which I cause to impart motion to an arm or quadrant (corresponding to the
'tiller), which is keyed or otherwise secured on the shaft of the excentric, so as
to impart its motion to the excentric. It will now be seen with this arrange-
From

page_text: ment, that on the excentric receiving a revolving or oscillatory movement, its
action will be conveyed by the connecting rod to the tiller, and will thus be
imparted to the rudder; but from the nature of the excentric it will be
obvious that the rudder will have little power to act through the connecting
rod upon the excentric to revolve it, and the steering wheel connected with it,
by reason of the friction against revolution in the excentric counteracting the
force which the connecting rod will exert tending to revolve the excentric; the
resistance of the excentric to revolution being increased or diminished by
increasing or diminishing the diameter of the excentric, the throw or amount
of excentricity remaining the same.
Having now explained the principal features of my Invention, I will now
proceed to describe in detail the modes in which I carry the same into effect,
referring, for the better understanding of which, to the Drawing annexed hereto.
Fig. 1 shews a sectional elevation, and Fig. 2 a plan sectional view, of the
mode and arrangement of mechanism which I prefer to use to carry my
Invention into effect. In Fig. 1 the excentric is shewn in one of its extreme
positions; in Fig. 2 it is shewn in its middle position, that is, in its position
when the rudder is in a line with the keel of the vessel. a is a short stud fixed
to the deck of the vessel; is the excentric, the axis of which is free, and fits
on the short stud (a), being secured upon it by a plate or cap a', that is bolted
to the stud a; c is a strap fitting, into a groove formed in the rim of the
excentric, the strap being made in two halves, so that it can be bolted on the
excentric by the bolts 6', the heads of which are formed to joint with the forked
ends of the connecting rod d, which are secured to the heads of the bolts b' by
pins d'; and the other end of the forked connecting rod is jointed with the heads
of the bolts (by means of a pin d), which screw together the swivel parts e',.
that embrace the pin or stud e, fixed in the end of the tiller or lever f, which is
secured to the fulcrum of the rudder g.. With this arrangement the connect-
ing rod d will not be strained, but will be free (on the pins d', d', and d) to
vertical oscillations, which may be given to it by vertical movement in the
rudder g.
Motion is imparted to the excentric by the steering wheel h, (which
may be made with a weighted rin, so as to act like a fly wheel on receiving an
impulse,) which is mounted on a shaft in bearings in the usual manner; i being
the barrel or drum; around which the rope or chain is wound and made fast,
one end passing in this case round the obliquely placed sheave pulley j, and is
secured to that end marked l' of the quadrant (1), (which is bolted to the
excentric,) and the other end passes through the sheave pullies j, k, and k, and
is secured to opposite end of the quadrant marked . In the arrangement
show the excentric is only turned about one-third of, a revolution, its excen-

page_text: power
tricity being made sufficient to give the extreme movements required by the.
rudder with that amount of revolution; but if made to revolve completely the
amount of excentricity may be diminished; in which case, instead of the quadrant
or segment of a pulley 1, an entire pulley may be used, and the sheave pulleys
k, k, dispensed with. Both ends of the rope or chain after passing through the
sheave pulleys j, j, may be directly secured to the pulley 7. From what has.
been described, it will now be clearly understood that the revolving of the
steering wheel h will cause the excentric 6 to turn on the axis a, and that its
reciprocating movement will give the requisite movements to the rudder g; and
it will be seen that while the rudder can easily be acted upon by manual j
applied to the steering wheel, the proportions of the excentric may be so adjusted
that it will itself, on the contrary, have but small power to act through the
excentric upon the steering wheel, which will, therefore, for the most part
remain in whatever position it is placed in, without exertion on the part of the
steersman to hold it in such position; but as it is found inexpedient to make
the mechanism perfectly rigid, the rudder is allowed to have a little action on
the excentric (and thus on the steering wheel) when subjected to heavy
impulses from the water, the amount of which may be regulated by propor-
tioning the parts as herein-before explained, that is, by increasing or diminishing
the diameter of the excentric (its excentricity remaining the same), or the stud
or axis on which it revolves, or both, according as a greater or less degree of
rigidness is required. It will be evident, that in place of the excentric, a
modification of it, approaching what is commonly termed a crank (or a lever),
may be employed, as the action of the two is precisely the same, the excentric
being only a crank with a pin enlarged sufficiently to embrace its axis of
rotation; but as an ordinary crank is in a largo degree free to impulses acting
at right angles to it, the parts will require arranging and modifying to increase
the friction, so as to destroy in a large degree the reactive force of the rudder
upon it, which may be accomplished (as before stated) by considerably increasing
the diameter of the fulcrum or axis of the crank (or lever), or the dia:neter of
the part corresponding to the crank pin, or both. Arrangements are shown in
the Drawing annexed hereto according to the modifications above referred to;
Figs. 3 and 4 being respectively a vertical sectional view and plan, Fig. 5 and 6
being respectively corresponding views, of the other modification. In one modi-
fication the "pin" is of small diameter and in the other of large diameter, the part
corresponding to the axis of the excentric or crank being in both cases of large
diameter; and as the same letters and figures are repeated on corresponding
parts on Figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6, as are used in the description of Fig. 1 and 2,
I need not add any further explanation of them, except to describe the addi-

page_text: tional parts and difference of construction. In the modification, Figure 3 and 4, "
a is the hollow shaft or stud fixed to the deck; it has a groove formed in its
outer edge, which is embraced by a strap m, formed in two halves, so as to bolt
on, (the quadrant 7 being made to form one-half of the strap,) which is free to
move on the stud a. n is a cross bar secured to the quadrant; in this a pin n¹
is secured, to which the pulley b (corresponding to the crank pin and excentric)
is fixed, which is made in the form shewn for lightness. In Fig. 5 and 6 the
axis a is formed in one piece, and it is embraced and is free to revolve in the
strap or bearing m, which is secured to the deck; and the part b, corresponding
to the crank pin or excentric, is secured on the part a, and the quadrant is
secured to the part b. In the modifications last explained, as in that first"
described (Fig. 1 and 2), the quadrant gives only about one-third of a revo-
lution; but if one entire revolution be required, the same method may be used
to accomplish this in these modifications as was described for this purpose in
reference to the modification shewn by Figs. 1 and 2. There are other
modifications of the excentric which may be used to carry out my Invention,
such as cams or segments of cams, but I believe the modification shewn by
Fig. 1 and 2 is most simple and convenient.
Having now particularly described the nature of my Invention, and the
modes in which it may be carried into effect, I would have it understood that I
do not confine myself to the details, as I have shewn that they may be variously
modified and yet retain the peculiar characteristics of my Invention; but what
I claim as new and as my Invention is, the application to the steering of
vessels, of mechanism, which includes the excentric, or any mechanical equi-
valent thereof, applied in like manner and for the like purpose herein-before
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Carr, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Nineteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five.
HOMAS CARD
THOMAS CAR
DD
(i.c.)