IMPROVEMENTS IN MAKING WOODEN SKEWERS, AND IN THE MACHINERY, APPARATUS, AND MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Butterworth and John
Backhouse Hutchinson at the Office of the Commissioners of
Patents, with their Petition, on the 27th June 1870.
We, JOSEPH BUTTERWORTH and JOHN BACKHOUSE HUTCHINSON, of
Leeds, in the County of York, Engineers, do hereby declare the nature
of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MAKING WOODEN SKEWERS,
AND IN THE MACHINERY, APPARATUS, AND MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN," to
be as follows:
This Invention has for its object the application of machinery or
apparatus for the rounding and pointing of skewers.
The first part of our Invention consists in the turning or rounding of
square or other suitable pieces of wood, for which purpose a pair of
rollers are mounted in a frame one above the other, having V grooves
turned or cut in the face or edge of each roller, thus forming a four-
sided hole between the rollers suited to the pieces of wood to be turned
or rounded, the rollers being connected together with wheels and driven
or turned round on their axis by means of a cord or strap. When the
said pieces of wood are presented to the V grooves in the above named
rollers they are drawn forward and come in contact with three or any

page_text: convenient number of knives or cutters, fixed or mounted upon a hollow
spindle at right angles with the above named rollers and in quick
rotation by means of a cord or strap. The said square pieces of wood
or other pieces of wood are thereby rounded and made smooth, and being
propelled forward by the said rollers are received at the other end of the
above named hollow spindle by another pair of rollers having half round
grooves in each, suitable to receive the rounded or turned part of the
piece of wood, and connected to the former rollers by intermediate
wheels, by which means after the first pair of rollers have propelled the
said piece of wood to be rounded to their extent it is received by the
second pair of rollers and drawn right through the above named hollow
spindle, and thereby turned or rounded from end to end.
The second part of our Invention consists in the pointing of skewers,
for which purpose an iron frame arranged with a T bracket mounted on
the top of the said frame, the T bracket having half round grooves in the
top part suitable for a skewer or round piece of wood to lie without
moving out of its place. Fitted to the above iron frame and adjoining
to the bracket are a pair of clambs or jaws, one jaw being fixed or
stationary, and the other jaw moveable by means of a lever resting upon
an irregular cam or eccentric. Attached to the lever connected to the
moveable jaw of the clambs is fitted a roller, which pressing on the cam
described by means of a weight on the end of the above lever, which
lever is raised or lowered by the said cam when put in motion, thus
opening or shutting the said clambs in order to hold or liberate the
skewer when required. On the other end of the cam or excentric
shaft above described is fixed a circular disc or plate, having fixed to the
face of the said disk, and at a proper distance from the centre is a stud
working in the slot groove of a lever a slide bar placed at right angles
with the cam shaft, at one end of the slot lever is fitted an upright
bracket, with a piston to traverse in the half round grooves on the top
of the T casting as described above, thus when a rounded piece of wood
is placed in the above described grooves, and a rotary motion is given to
the cam shaft by means of wheels, and the stud fixed in the round dise
working in the slot groove of the lever or slide bar, an horizontal
backward and forward motion is obtained, by which means the piston
fitted to the upright bracket propells forward the rounded piece of wood
the required distance into the clambs to be pointed, which said clambs
being liberated by the cam as described, the said piece of wood is then

page_text: held fast by means of the weight at the end of the above named lever;
opposite to and in a right line with the above described clambs are
fitted pedestals or carriages having a spindle turned round by means of
a cord or strap. On the end of this spindle is mounted a head or cutter
boss having a conical hole up the centre the required shape for the
skewer point, and fitted to the head or cutter boss are one or more
cutters underneath the said spindle, and at right angles with it is placed
a shaft, on the end of which is fitted a disk or plate, in which disk is
fitted a stud at a proper distance from its centre, which stud working in
the slot groove of a lever or slide bar placed parallel and in a right line
with the spindle above, having a bracket fitted to the end of the lever or
slide bar and attached to the said spindle, thereby receiving a backward
and forward motion; by these arrangements the rounded pieces of wood
requiring pointing are pushed forward into the clambs and then held
fast by the weight at the end of the lever described. The cutting
spindle in the second instance receiving the reciprocating motion
imparted to it by the slot har is pushed forward on to the end of the
said piece of wood, the said spindle having a rotary motion by means of
a cord or strap, thereby turning or cutting the point required.