IMPROVEMENTS IN SEWING MACHINES
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Fletcher and William Carr
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition, on the
17th June 1867.
We, JAMES FLETCHER and WILLIAM CARR, both of Blackburn, in the
County of Lancaster, Machinists, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN SEWING MACHINES," to be as follows:-
Our improvements relate to the mechanism or arrangements for "feeding *
the fabric or material to be sewn. This has been done hitherto by means of
a roughened or serrated surface and a smooth presser plate or table, between
which surfaces the fabric being sewn has passed, the serrated or rougbened
surface causing the fabric when fed to slide over the smooth surface of the
presser plate or table. The smooth surface in feed motions above referred to
is stationary in the direction in which the cloth or fabric is fed, and retards to
some extent that piece of cloth with which it is in contact, so that when two
pieces of cloth are being sewn together one piece will be slack and the other
will be tight in the direction of the seam.
Our improvements are intended to remedy this defect, and they consist in
arranging the two surfaces between which the cloth is fed so that both will
move with the cloth when fed, and before they move back again for the next
stitch one of the surfaces is lifted or removed from the fabric, so that both
surfaces can move back without dragging or pressing upon the fabric and
at the same time leave the fabric at liberty to be freely turned. Both of the

page_text: surfaces operating upon the fabric may be positively actuated by the same
feeding cam to feed the cloth, or one surface only may be positively actuated,
the other being arranged to turn easily upon a pivot joint or centre, and so as
to move with the cloth when fed; being brought back for the next feeding
movement by a weight or spring when the surfaces are released from the
fabric being sewn. For the purpose of illustration we will describe our
improvements more particularly in reference to that class of feed motions
termed "under feeds," that is, where the roughened or serrated feeding
surface is under the fabric being sewn. In this class of "feeds" where the
roughened or serrated surface has a simple reciprocating movement, then
according to our Invention the upper presser plate (which is at the lower end
of a stem) has a lifting movement and also a to-and-fro movement (same as
the serrated surface), being pivoted, hinged, or jointed so as to move to and
fro laterally, and is either actuated positively by the feeding cam or by the
fabric (when fed) and a spring giving it back movement. The upper pressing
plate is also arranged as above described when the "wheel feed" is used
below the fabric. When the "four motion feed" is used below the fabric
the presser plate need only have lateral reciprocating movements and need
not have any vertical movements imparted to it if free from the cloth during
its back movement. In "top feeds," that is, where the serrated surface is
above the fabric being sewn, which is then pressed down upon the smooth
surface of the table, when fed, our improvements consist in arranging a
surface below the fabric to be moved by the cloth when fed and returned by a
spring or moved by the feeding cam positively.