IMPROVED APPARATUS POR COMPRESSING POWDERS INTO PELLETS
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jabez James at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th March
1869.
I, JABEZ JAMES, of Princes Strect, Stamford Street, Lambeth, in the
County of Surrey, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS POR COMPRESSING POWDERS INTO PELLETS,'
to be as follows:-
The object of my improved apparatus is to effect the compression of
powders, such as gunpowder, blacklead, charcoal, and other substances,
into pellets or lumps of cylindrical or other suitable forms. For this
purpose I mount on a framing a punching slide, which is worked up and
down by an eccentric, cam, crank, or other convenient mechanism.
Under this slide I mount a disc which can turn on a vertical axis. In
this disc I perforate numerous holes, each of the shape desired for the
transverse section of the pellet, and I make the thickness of the disc to
suit the length desired for the pellet; all these holes are equally distant
from the centre of the disc, and are spaced at equal intervals around it.
On the axis of the disc I fix a ratchet wheel with teeth suited to the

page_text: In
holes in the disc, and to this ratchet wheel I apply a pall, which is
worked with reciprocating movement by a cam or eccentric on the
driving shaft of the apparatus, so that the movement of the disc one
division at a time is suitably timed to the movement of the slide.
the punching slide I fix two punches, shaped so as to fit the holes in the
disc. One of these is shorter than the other, and they are set at a
distance apart equal to the distance between two adjacent holes in the
disc. Below the disc facing the longer punch I make a hole through
the table or plate on which the disc bears, so that when one of the holes
of the disc is brought immediately over this hole there is a clear opening
through which a pellet can be discharged. In cases where the pellet is to
be perforated I apply a wire or wires reciprocating vertically under the
disc, the movement of these wires being effected by a cam, crank, or
eccentric properly timed to that of the punching slide; these wires
passing up through holes in the plate which forms the bottom of the
mould, and being withdrawn before the disc is moved, leave holes or
perforations in the pellet. At one side of the slide I fix a hopper con-
taining the powder to be operated on, and I fit the lower end of this
hopper, which is immediately over one of the holes in the disc, with a
tube and two slides at a regulated distance apart, somewhat like those
used for the mouth of a powder flask. These slides are worked alternately
by a cam or eccentric, properly timed to the stroke of the punching
slide and to the movement of the disc. Instead of reciprocating slides,
double rotating discs with holes alternating in the upper and lower may
be employed; and in either case I prefer to pass a revolving spindle
through the hopper, this spindle having blades which agitate the powder
and prevent it from remaining suspended in the hopper.
The action of the apparatus is as follows:-While the punching slide
is in the upper part of its stroke, so that the punches are clear above the
disc, the disc is caused to turn one division so as to bring two of it
holes immediately under the two punches, and another of its holes
immediately under the hopper tube. During the same time the lower
slide of the hopper being closed and the upper slide being opened a
charge of the powder runs from the hopper into the tube, and is retained
there. The disc having thus moved one division remains at rest while
the two punches descend into the holes beneath them. The shorter
punch compresses the charge in the one hole into a pellet, and the
longer punch forces out from the other hole the pellet which had been

page_text: compressed at the previous down stroke; at the same time, while the
disc is at rest, the upper slide of the hopper tube being closed and the
lower slide being opened, the charge which was contained in the tube
runs into the hole in the disc immediately below it. The punches then
make their upstroke, the hopper slides are reversed, the disc is turned
one division, and the action is repeated, and so on continously. In
order to regulate with delicacy the charge contained in the hopper tube
I prefer to make it with a slot in the side, into which is fitted a filling
piece. This piece can be adjusted outwards or inwards by a screw so as
to increase or diminish the capacity of the tube, while its length measured
between the slides remains constant.