IMPROVEMENTS IN ROLLER SKATES AND IN THE ROLLERS OR WHEELS THEREOF
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jonathan Aldous Mays at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 24th August 1876.
JONATHAN ALDOUS MAYS, of 221, Gresham House, Old Broad Street, in the City
of London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN ROLLER SKATES AND IN THE ROLLERS OR WHEELS
THEREOF."
This Invention relates to improvements in the method of lubricating and
mounting the wheels of roller or wheel skates.
Annular, horizontal, or other suitable recesses or chambers are to be made in the
body of the wheel, and these recesses or chambers are to be filled with masses of
wool, cotton, sponge, or other such like absorbent material; communication is to be
made between such recesses or chambers and the axis of the wheel by means of slits,
slots, holes, orifices, or openings leading from one to the other. These slits, slots, or
other orifices or openings, are to be so made that small masses of wool, cotton,
sponge, blotting paper, or such like absorbent material, may be placed therein and
detained there by means of the swelling or expanding of such materials when
wetted with lubricants or moisture; or such absorbent materials may be retained
within the slots, slits, or other orifices or openings, or kept within or adjacent to the
axis by means of glue or such like material, or they may be fastened in position by
mechanical means. The important point is to bring absorbent material into the
axis of the wheel, and to retain it there in contact with the axle in such a way that
there shall always be such communication by means of it between the axis and the
annular or other cavities or chambers as that these latter being filled or charged
with a lubricant to the point or nearly to the point of saturation, the effect of the
action of the wheel will be that the lubricant will flow into the axis from the
absorbent material in contact with the axle.
The rollers may also be so constructed or be so fitted upon the skate, or the
absorbent materials may be so arranged that any excess of the lubricant which may
flow out of the axis may be conducted towards and be re-absorbed by and filtered
through the absorbent materials in the annular or other cavities or chambers. The
lubricant may thus be used over and over again and yet be presented to the axis in
a clean condition. The waste of the lubricant will thus be prevented and the
outsides of the rollers will also be kept clean.
These results may be effected as follows:-Undercut annular channels or under-
cut channels partly annular are to be made upon the sides of the wheels in such a

page_text: way that the lubricant which passes or escapes from the axis, and which from its
- tendency either to be carried to the point of greatest velocity or to flow downward
would ordinarily spread itself over the sides of the wheel, shall be caught or collected
in such undercut channel and be conducted thereby to or upon a part of the
absorbent material from which the lubricant was in the first place extracted or
drawn by the friction of the axle. Or in place of an undercut channel or in
combination therewith, the absorbent material forming the saturated mass or some
part of the same may be placed around or near to the mouths of the axis and on or
in the sides of the wheel, so that the escaping lubricant may be caught or collected
thereon, and be conducted through or along the same to the point from and at which
it was in the first instance extracted by the friction of the axle.
The saving and "circulation". of the lubricant may also be effected by so
mounting the wheel upon its axle that any oil which may escape and be deposited -
upon the washer or upon the shoulder of the axle shall by the action of the wheel
be wiped away by some part of the absorbent material.
The "masses of absorbent materials may, be so made or arranged as to be
capable of being readily transferred from an old or worn out wheel to a new one ;
thus they may be in part enclosed within a separate annular ring or open capsule of
metal.
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