provements in Mechanical Musical Instruments
Year: 1895

page_text: Date of Application, 29th Apr, 1895
Complete Specification Left, 28th Jan, 1896-Accepted, 29th Feb,
1896
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Improvements in Mechanical Musical Instruments
I, CHARLTS WARREN, of 101, Hungerford Road, Camden Town, in the
County of London, Mechanical Expert, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention to be as follows
My invention relates to mechanical musical instruments of the kind wherein a
music sheet in the form of a disc is employed, the said disc operating in conjunction
with a series of levers in connection with the reeds
In such instruments as heretofore constructed the reeds have been sonuded by
compressed air and the arrangement has been such that the levers against which
the music disc bear have after a short time caused considerable damage to the
said disc
Now the object of my invention is to provide for sounding the reeds by means
of air suction, whereby I am enabled to reduce to a minimum the amount of work
required to be performed by the levers against which the disc operates and thereby
considerably increase the life of the discs
I u
According to my invention I employ duplex suction bellows and also au
additional set of bellows which serve to produce an extra vacuum when required
The valve of each reed which is normally retained closed by a spring is operated
by a small bellows which is normally contracted but which when expanded serves
to open the valve connected to it to allow the corresponding reed to sound
connection with the passage leading to each of these valve bellows is valve which
is directly operated by one of the levers against which the music disc acts (and
hereinafter referred to as disc levers) in such a manner that when one of such disc
levers is moved, owing to the rotation of the disc, the said valve in connection
with the bellows will open to allow air to enter the said valve bellows and open the
eed valve to permit the reed to sound
In order to permit of placing the disc levers close together and of making the
music disc as small as possible, the passages in connection with the several valve
bellows are formed on the upper and under sides of a partition, the alternate
levels operating in conjunction with the valves for the passages on one side of the
partition whilst the intermediate levers opciate in conjunction with the valves on
the opposite side of the said partition
The music diets are mounted upon a rotating boss having a series of pins which
enter corresponding apertures in the said discs to prevent the latter from rotating
relatively with the boss
Deted the 20th day of Anril 1805
G F REDFERN & Co,
4, South Street, Finsbury, London, Agents for the Applicant

page_text: improvements in Mechanical Musical Instruments
I, CHARLES WARREN, of 101, Hungerford Road, Camden Town, in the
County of London, Mechanical Expert, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement
-
My invention relates to mechanical musical instruments of the kind wherein a
music sheet in the form of a disc is employed, the said disc operating in conjunction
with a series of levers in connection with the reeds
In such instruments as heretofore constructed the reeds have been sounded by
compres ed air and the airangement has been such that the levers against which
the music disc bear have after a short time caused considerable damage to the
said disc
Now the object of my invention is to provide for sounding the reeds by means
of air suction, whereby I am enabled to reduce to a minimum the amount of work
required to be performed by the levers against which the disc operates and thereby
considerably increase the life of the discs
In
According to my invention I employ duplex suction bellows and also an
additional set of bellows which seive to produce in extra suction when required
The valve of each reed which is normally retained closed by a spring is operated
by a small bellows which is normal y contracted but which, when expanded, seives
to open the valve connected to it to allow the corresponding reed to sound
connection with the passage leading to each of these valve bellows is a valve which
is directly operated by one of the levers against which the nusic disc acts (and
hereinafter referred to as disc levers) in such a manner that when one of such dise
levers is moved, owing to the rotation of the disc, the said valve in connection with
the bellows will open to allow air to enter the sail valve bellows and open the reed
valve to permit the reed to sound
The music discs are mounted upon a rotating boss having a series of pins which
enter corresponding apertures in the said discs to prevent the latter from rotating
relatively with the boss
To enable my invention to be fully understood I will describe the same by
reference to the accompanying drawing, in which
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Figure 1 is a sectional plan of a musical instrument having my improvements
applied thereto, and,
Figure 2 is a transverse section on the line 2-2, Figure 1
Figure 3 is a sectional view shewing the arrangement of the air passages
a is the case of the instrument containing three superposed chambers b, c, d, the
said chambers being sej arated by the partitions e, fg, g are the duplex suction
bellows, and h is the additional bellows, these bellows g, g and h are arranged in
the lowermost chamber b and communicate with the chamber c through suitable
openings in the partition e The bellows g, 9 are operated to exhaust the au from
the chamber c and from the bellows h by the rotation of the shaft through the
medium of the crank, and the connecting rod k
bellows have to close up under the suction is counteracted either by a weight or
The tendency which the
by a spring arranged within these bellows in such a manner that if at any time the
duplex bellows 9, 9 should be insufficient to exhaust the air passing into the
chamber, the said bellows which during working the instrument are more or less
closed, would expand under the action of the said spring or weight is a spring
valve upon the outside of the bellows h, which valve, if the the said bellows are
entirely collapsed under the influence of the bellows g, g, is opened by coming
into contact with a projection h² on the upper side of the bellows h, whereby air is

page_text: let into the bellows to prevent them being dumiged under the influence of the
outside air-pressure
1,7 indicate the usual reeds, and m the valves ou pallets which control the passage
of the air through the reeds, the said pallet being normally maintained closed
against the air suction by means of springs n Each pallet m has a valve
bellows o arranged in conjunction with it which bellows are normally maintained
closed under the pressure of the springs n, and have arranged in connection with
them passages p, p, which communicate with the atmosphere 99 e spring
valves which control communication between the pissages p, p and the tm sphere,
and r, rare the disc levers against the free ends of which the music disc (which in
the drawing is illustrated by the dot and dash lines) operates These disc
levers 7, carry spring fingers , which, when the duc levers r, rare lepre sed
owing to the passage of a solid portion of the disc over them, press down the
valves y, 9 so as to close the pas ages p, p
t is the rotating boss having pins u, u upon it and serving to carry the music
disc, which music disc is driven by the fiction wheel v operated from the shaft
through the medium of the worm wheel w and worm w¹
the friction roller
which serves to retain the music disc in contact with the fiction wheel vand
which when it is required to
the way
move the music dise can be tuned out of
In order to permit of placing the disc levers r, r as close together and of
making the music disc as small as possible, the passages p p of the several
bellows o are formed by cutting grooves y, y in two boards y', y2 and placing these
boards one upon the other as shewn in Figure 3 so that the grooves in the board y¹
e closed by the plain side of the board y2 and the grooves in the board y' by the
partition f, or both sets of grooves y, y may be formed on the upper and under sides
of the board y², in which case the board y' will be plain The disc levers r, r
which control the valves q, g of the various passages are arranged so that the
alternate disc levers operate in conjunction with the valves of the passages p on
one side of the body whilst the intermediate disc levers operate in conjunction
with the valves of the passages on the opposite side of the said board
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The operation of the mechanism herein before described is as follows
Assume the music disc to be in such a position that all the levers r, r are depressed
and that all the spring valves 9, 9 close their passages p, P if now the exhaust
bellows are operated, the air in the chamber c will be rarified so thit, when an
opening in the music disc is presented opposite to the end of one of the disc
levers r, the latter rises under the action of its spring valve q aud allows air to
enter through the corresponding passages p into the corresponding bellows o
whereby the latter are expanded and open the valve m to sound the correspondin
need which will continue to sound until the lever is again depressed to close the
passage p whereupon the air which entered the bellows o is exhausted through
a pinhole in the bellows so that the valve m closes under the action of the
spring n
It will thus be understood that the pressure of the ends of the disc levers r, r
against the underside of the music disc only corresponds with the upward pressure
of the spring valves 7, 9 so that there is not the wear upon the sud music sheets
which takes place when the disc levers 7, are employed to directly operate the
valves or pallets of the reeds
is an arm or bar which is usually employed in connection with instruments of
this kind for retaining the boss on which the music sheet is mounted in its proper
position, the said lever as shewn in the di twing being turned back for allowing a
disc to be applied to the boss
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is
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1 In a mechanical musical instrument wherein a music sheet in the form of

page_text: a disc is employed and wherein the said disc operates in conjunction with a serie
of disc levers, arranging the reeds to be operated by air suction, the valves which
control the sounding of the reeds being operated by bellows, the admission of an
into which is regulated by the said levers, substantially as, and for the purpose,
described
2 In a mechanical musical instrument wherein the needs are operated by an
suction and wherein the sounding of the reeds is controlled in the manner herein-
before described, the combination with the suction bellows of additional bellow.
such as substantially as, and for the purpose, described
3 In a mechanical mu ical instrument wherein the reeds are controlled by a
music disc through the medium of a series of levers actuated by the said disc, the
arrangement of air passages substantially as described with reference to Figure 3
for the purpose specified
4 The improvements in mechanical musical instruments herein before described
and illustrated in the accompanying drawing
Dated this 28th day of January 1896
G F REDFERN & Co,
4, South Street, Finsbury, London, Agents for the Applicant