IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BOXES AND OTHER ARTICLES FROM PAPER PULP, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick Ransome, Thomas Mitcheson
Gray, and Frederick Smith at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on
the 14th June 1877.
FREDERICK RANSOME, of Lower Norwood; in the County of Surrey, one of the
Directors of the British Seamless Paper Box Company, Limited, Battersea, THOMAS
MITCHESON GRAY, of Peckham, in the County of Surrey, Engineer to the said
Company, and FREDERICK SMITH, of Battersea, in the County of Surrey, Foreman
in the employ of the said Company. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
BOXES AND OTHER ARTICLES FROM PAPER PULP, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR
APPARATUS THEREFOR."
The object of this Invention is to improve and expedite the manufacture of boxes
and other articles from paper pulp.
For this purpose we, according to this mode of manufacture, make use of a
chamber or vessel, continuously supplied with paper pulp, and provided with pulp
overflow or waste pipe. In this chamber we arrange one or more, but by preference,
say, three, form carriers, which in their turn one after the other are moved up
through the pulp and into a mould, wherein the pulp deposited thereon is subjected
to a heavy pressure, sufficient to express the water from the pulp which is deposited
on the exterior of the porous or perforated form. The form carrier is perforated,
and the hollow or interior part thereof communicates with a vacuum chamber or air
exhausting apparatus. The pressure is by preference hydraulic, but steam or other
power may be used, and the power may be applied either by means of cylinder
and piston gear, or by screw, wedge, knuckle joint, or other known mechanical
appliances.
The box or other article with its interior "form" being removed from the form
carrier may, if required, be further pressed or embossed in another machine, and
may then be sized and coloured or otherwise finished as required.
The water, or the greatest part of it, having been expressed in the first instance,
the surface obtained is by the aforesaid process smooth and not open or porous as
when made by heretofore known processes.
According to a modified arrangement the circumferential pressure is applied to
the box or other hollow article by calendar or roller appliance.

page_text: 'The box with its internal form on the form carrier aforesaid, or removed there-
from-and placed on another form carrier or head, has placed around it a loose ring,
against which a pressing roller or cylinder is made to revolve, thereby compressing
the circumference of the box, which latter along with the head or carrier, or the
upper part thereof, is also made to revolve, the box bottom (or lid top, as the case
may be), is compressed by a pressing head, a loose disc or roller appliance being
placed between the two. Or the carrier may be stationary, and the revolving roller
made to travel round it; the latter is moved up against its work or away from it as
required. The moisture expressed is withdrawn from the hollow perforated carrier,
as before described.
A suitable apparatus for carrying this manufacture into effect is as follows:—
From a shaft revolved indirectly from or directly by a steam engine we work & set
of hydraulic press pumps, or a pump and accumulator which supplies compressed
fluid to a press cylinder, by preference inserted and placed above the machine.
From the same or other shaft we give intermittent rotary motion to the pulp
chamber or vessel by means of a suitable clutch and worm wheel or other gearing;
the pulp is supplied to the vessel by a central hollow stem or pipe. The pulp vessel
carries, say, three or more cylinders or pipes, arranged equidistantly around the
centre, and each having a ram or piston carrying a "form" carrier at the top.
These cylinders communicate on one side with the pulp chamber through the cylinder
pistons or rams, and on the other side with an air chamber or conduit in connection
with a vacuum vessel or exhausting apparatus. The aforesaid upper hydraulic
cylinder is so placed that one form carrier after the other is brought directly under
it. The form carrier, rams, or pistons are raised in succession by cams or other gear
to the top of the pulp chamber, and a form carrier thus in a raised position under
the hydraulic cylinder is then further, by preference, by means of knuckle gear,
worked by a lower hydraulic cylinder lifted into a contractile mould, consisting of,
say, four or more parts, which are simultaneously brought towards the common
centre by knuckle joint, or wedges, or cains, or other well-known mechanical means
for that purpose. When the sides or circumference of the box have thus been
compressed the upper hydraulic ram or piston compresses the bottom part of the
box thereon. The mould may form the guide for the end of this ram; the parts of
the die are brought back by volute or other springs, or by weights, or other
mechanical appliances. The box being thus compressed its form carrier is lowered
out of the mould and swung round one-third of a revolution, and the box is then
taken off by the attendant, or by an automatic stripper; the attendant then puts
on another form, the carrier makes another third of a revolution while descending
into the pulp, and the same operation is then commenced again.