IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS FOR LIGHTING ILLUMINATING GAS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Turner at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 27th March 1876. A communication from
abroad by Henry Bull Stockwell, Julian Wheat Merrill, and Edward Landon
Megill, all of Brooklyn, in the State of New York, United States of America.
EDWARD TURNER, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick. IMPROVEMENTS
IN MEANS FOR LIGHTING ILLUMINATING GAS."
"
The objects of this Invention are to simplify the construction of the apparatus for
lighting gas burners, patented by A. V. Newton, and bearing date November 2nd
1874, No. 3782, and of rendering such apparatus more efficient in action.
In the Specification of the said patent the apparatus was described as igniting
by percussion buttons of fulminate placed at equal distances apart on a tape or
band of paper coiled in a box attached to the burner, such apparatus being set in
action by the turning on of the gas tap, a further movement of which in the same
direction cut off the supply.
It is now proposed to connect the apparatus with a tap which has the ordinary
forward and back motion, and thus to make its action more easily comprehensible
to servants and others who may be employed in lighting gas burners.
Within the box which carries the coil of tape prepared with fulminate is fitted a
washer, which is slotted at its centre to receive the squared end of the gas plug, and
ensure its turning with the plug. The screw which retains the plug in place serves
also to secure the washer. Fitted loosely to this washer is a cranked spring, which
passes through a saw cut in the perimeter of the tape box, and has a tendency to
press inwards against a standard forming a portion of the casting of the
gas burner,
its object being to feed the tape carrying the igniting composition up to the hammer
which is to ignite the fulminate. This cranked spring has at its lower end a
lateral projection, which enters an eccentric hole formed in the washer, and acts as
a loose crank pin, raising and lowering the spring as the plug of the burner is
turned to the right or left. Attached to the tape case is a spring hammer which
extends upwards to an inclined surface of the standard, which inclined surface is
near the top of the burner, and serves as an anvil. The cranked spring or feeder
and the spring of the hammer are so shaped relatively to each other that the hammer
spring which overlies the feeder will as the feeder is moved up be thrust backwards
until the contact shoulders of the two springs get clear of each other. The hammer
will then fly forwards and strike the fulminate that is presented to it down upon
the anvil, and effect its ignition; this will take place at the time that the gas is
[Price 2d.]

page_text: issuing from the burner, and the gas will therefore become ignited. When it is
desired to turn off the gas this can be done by giving the tap a quarter turn
backwards, the feeding spring will then be drawn down to its lowest position ready
to advance the tape up to the hammer as before. In making this back movement
the springs will press laterally against each other, and the hammer spring will yield a
to allow the feeder to pass under it, thus the feeder will regain the position requisite
for effecting the back motion of the hammer.