IM- PROVEMENTS IN SCREW GILL APPARATUS FOR COMBING WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS
Year: 1860

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said John Thomas Robinson in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 28th March 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
THOMAS ROBINSON, of Bradford, in the County of York, Wool Dealer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Second day of October, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty, in the twenty-fourth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
John Thomas Robinson, Her special license that I, the said John Thomas
Robinson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the
said John Thomas Robinson, 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
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for " IM-
PROVEMENTS IN SCREW GILL APPARATUS FOR COMBING WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS
MATERIALS," upon the condition, amongst others, that I, the said John Thomas
Robinson, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their
hands and seals, should 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 immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Thomas Robinson, 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 of improvements consists, firstly, in the adaptation to and
employment of two or more sets of hackles or pins in the feeding heads of
combing machines, when gills are employed, and are so constructed that each
set of hackles or pins may be of a different pitch or fineness from the other
set or sets of hackles or pins, or each set of screws in which the said hackles
traverse may be made of a different pitch to the other set or sets of screws,
each set of screws may also be made to revolve at a different speed to the
other set or sets.
And, secondly, my next improvement also relates to the screw gill apparatus,
and consists in the adaptation to and employment of a cleaning or screen comb
which is so constructed that it may be made to enter between or in front of

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Thomas Robinson, of Bradford, in the County
of York, Wool Dealer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN SCREW
GILL APPARATUS FOR COMBING WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS."
Sealed the 11th December 1860, and dated the 2nd October 1860.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Thomas Robinson
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 2nd October 1860.
I, JOHN THOMAS ROBINSON, of Bradford, in the County of York, Wool
Dealer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN SCREW GILL APPARATUS FOR COMBING WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS," to
be as follows:-
First, in the adaptation to and employment of two or more sets of hackles
or pins in the feeding head of combing machines where screw gills are em-
ployed, and are so constructed that each set of hackles or pins may be of
different pitch or fineness from the other set or sets of hackles or pins, or
each set of screws in which the said hackles traverse may be made of a
different pitch to the other set or sets of screws, each set of screws may also be
made to revolve at a different speed to the other set or sets.
Secondly, my next improvement also relates to screw gill apparatus, and
consists in the adaptation to and employment of a clearing or screen comb,
which is so constructed that it may be made to enter between or in front of
the rows of hackles or pins at the time the fibrous material is being drawn
therefrom.

page_text: the rows of hackles or pins at the time the fibrous material is being drawn
therefrom.
The machines to which my improvements have reference are those em-
ployed in the combing of those fibrous materials to which the process of
combing is applicable, and in which or in combination with which what is
known as screw gill apparatus is used and consists, first, in making and
constructing the screw gill apparatus, each of two or more sets of bars of gill
hackles or pins, each of which set shall be of different pitch or degree of
fineness than those of the other set or sets. In referring to these hackles or
pins I will generally, for sake of brevity, use only the term hackles.
Referring to the accompanying Drawing Figure 1 represents a sectional
elevation of a part of the feeding head or gill apparatus attached to or part
of a combing machine sufficient to shew this part of my improvement; and
Figure 2, a plan of Figure 1.
In this there are two sets of hackle bars A and B, the hackles of the set B
are of finer pitch than those of the set A, the fibrous material passes through
the apparatus in the direction of the ☑>> and is therefore acted upon by
the sets of hackles in the order of their degrees of fineness of pitch, commencing
with the coarser pitch A and finishing with the finer B. Thus, by reason of
the difference in the relative pitch or degrees of fineness of the hackles A and
B, the fibrous material will be subjected to less tension or breaking action than
with feeding heads of screw gill apparatus of the ordinary construction
where the hackles are of one set only and of uniform pitch or degree of fine-
ness throughout.
Although I have here shewn and described the hackles as being in two
sets only, three or more sets may be at any time employed differing in pitch
or degrees of fineness.
My improvements further consist in making and constructing the screws
actuating the hackles of different pitch of thread, that is the screws actuating
one set of hackles being of different pitch of thread to the screws actuating
the other set or sets of hackles, so that the separate sets of hackles are
actuated at different velocities, the set of hackles which operate lastly on the
fibrous material being actuated at the greater velocity.
My improvements also consist in revolving and working the screws or sets of
screws actuating the separate sets of hackles at different velocities, so that the
screws actuating one set of hackles shall revolve at a different velocity from the
screws actuating the other set or sets of hackles, the screws actuating the
set of hackles, last operating on the fibrous material, revolving at the
quicker rate.

page_text: Secondly, my improvement consists in the adaptation to and employment with
screw gill apparatus or feeding heads of combing machines, herein-before referred
to, of a cleaner or screen comb, shewn in Figure 1, at E, which represents the
cleaner or screen comb, which is carried by the arm F, it is so actuated and
worked by means of a crank or camb movement from any convenient part of
the machinery, by preference from the back part, that it assumes alternately
the position of the dotted lines when out of action, and no fibrous material is
being drawn from the gill apparatus, and the position shown by the full
lines when it is in action, and the fibrous material is drawn through it from
the gill apparatus, and which latter position it assumes just at the time
when the fibrous material is commenced to be drawn from the gill apparatus,
it being drawn thus through this cleaning or screen comb. Although I
have here shewn and described the cleaner or screen comb as placed and
acting in front of the hackles of the gill apparatus it may be employed between
the hackles.
Having now described my improvements, I claim as my Invention as
relates to the construction of screw gill apparatus in combination with or
being part of machines employed in the combing of wool or other fibrous
material, the adaptation to and use and employment therewith as part of such
screw gill apparatus,-
First, two or more sets of hackles or pins each set being of different pitch
or degree of fineness from the other set or sets of hackles or pins.
Second, two or more sets of screws actuating the hackles or pins, each
set being of different pitch or thread from the other set or sets of screws.
Third, two or more sets of screws actuating the hackles or pins, each
set rotating or revolving at different speed to the other set or sets of screws.
Fourth, a cleaner or screen comb to the front of the hackles or pins, or
between the hackles or pins, and between the teeth of which cleaner or
screen comb the fibrous material passes when drawn from the hackles or
pins.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Thomas Robinson, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Eleventh day of February, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one.
JOHN THOMAS ROBINSON. (L.S.)