IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR PREPARING, SPINNING, AND DOUBLING COTTON AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Higgins and Thomas Scho-
field Whitworth at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 15th
February 1877.
JAMES HIGGINS, of Salford, in the County of Lancaster, Machine Maker, and
THOMAS SCHOFIELD WHITWORTH, of the same Place, Manager of Machine Works.
IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR PREPARING, SPINNING, AND DOUBLING COTTON
AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS."
"
Our Invention relates, firstly, to improvements upon that arrangement of carding
engine for which Letters Patent were granted to James Higgins and Thomas
Schofield Whitworth, dated 11th April 1867, No. 1079; and to Henry Higgins
and Thomas Schofield Whitworth, dated 20th July 1869, No. 2197, and
consists,―
Firstly. In an arrangement whereby we are enabled to vary the stripping of the
flats so as to operate on those over the doffer less frequently than those over the
licker in, in order to accomplish which we make the lifting part which acts upon
the flat so as to raise it movable and cause it to remain in, or depart from the
lifting position by apparatus to which motion is given by the machine.
The arrangement we employ is as follows:-Upon the ordinary wheel to which
the lifter rod is jointed is a mutilated wheel which gives motion to a shaft, which
by means of a worin drives a cam with two elevations, such elevations determining
whether the part which immediately acts as the lifter shall be in an operating posi-
tion, and thus the raising of any number of flats may be missed for any required
time.
Another improvement in the said carding engine consists in a method of grinding
the flats without requiring them to be removed from this machine.
This we accom-
plish by removing the stripping apparatus and adapting in its place a grinding
roller to which rotatory motion is imparted in any suitable manner. When this
has been done a quick traversing motion is imparted to the radial arm, and the
clutch box is kept permanently in gear. By this arrangement the flats may be
ground while that operation is performed upon the cylinder, or at other times when
the machine is not carding.
Secondly. Our Invention refers to the throstle and consists in a method of adapting
the bobbin to the spindle. In the case of the fixed bolster rail, the rail is provided
with a fixed bush which extends upward, and upon this is placed a loose tube pro-

page_text: jecting into the bobbin, such tube being narrowed at its upper end so as to bear
against the spindle. Or the said tube on which the bush works may be continued
upward to the flyer.
In the case of the sliding bolster rail we cast the supports for carrying the poker
bars to the upper and lower rails, but the parts of the upper rail which in the case
of the fixed bolster rail carry the spindles, are dispensed with.
For the purpose of lubrication we place a flannel washer or washers for carrying
oil within the loose tube, so that when the spindle is running, the said washers rest
upon the top of the fixed bush, and oil is admitted thereto by forming the top of
the loose tube cup shaped, and we apply these flannel washers to fixed as well as to
sliding bolsters.