Improvements in the Manufacture of Footballs.
Year: 1885

page_text: Improvements in the Manufacture of Footballs.
I WILLIAM HOWARD of 98 Lancaster Street, Newington Causeway in the County
of Surrey Football Maker do hereby declare the nature of my said invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FOOTBALLS" to be as follows:-
This Invention has reference to round footballs-which I propose to make in
four pieces only-the leather being stretched and prepared by the process described
in my patent N° 11089-1885.
The ends or junctions of the said four pieces being secured at either end, by
the usual leather shield being placed inside the ball instead of outside, and sewn
or stabbed through by which means the friction upon the inner rubber ball is
prevented.
The ball is either laced up inside or out as described in the above N° Patent.

page_text: I, WILLIAM HOWARD, of No 40, Webber Row, Webber Street, Blackfriars, in
the County of Surrey, Foot Ball Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of
this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be par-
ticularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
This invention relates to the manufacture of round foot balls, and consists in
making the leather covers thereof by sewing together four pieces, and fixing the
end shields inside the cover; and is an extension of the invention patented to me
under Letters Patent No 11089 of 1885.
In order that my invention, and the means by which the same may be carried
into practical effect, may be thoroughly understood, I will now proceed to describe
the same in detail, referring in so doing to the accompanying drawings which are
to be taken as part of this specification and read therewith, and in which like parts
are marked throughout the figures in which they occur with the same reference
letter.
The first step in the process of carrying my invention into effect is that of
stretching and shaping the four pieces of leather. This is done by means of wood
templates of about an inch in thickness, and elliptical in plan, with the opposite
ends prolonged, and cut off parallel to the minor axis of the ellipse.
The size of a template is that of one of the four pieces of leather, plus a margin
to which the leather, previously cut out to the template, can be nailed.
Fig. 1 is a plan of a template A. B is the piece of leather wetted, (preferably in
lukewarm water,) stretched, and tacked thereon. C indicates the line of tacking,
which is, of course, continued round the template, although only half the line is
shewn in the figure. When the leather B has been well stretched and dried, it is
cut off along the line b inside the line of tacks in the margin c. The leather now
presents in plan the shape of an ellipse having pointed ends.
The next step is that of imparting a permanent convexity, of the necessary
depth, to the pieces B.
This is effected upon a block D, shewn in side elevation in Fig. 3, and in end
elevation in Fig. 4.
The block is a quarter of a sphere plus the convex enlargement above the dotted
lines d, d.
The leather B is wetted as before, and stretched across the back of the block,
first along the line e, e, Fig. 4, pulled round the opposite edges of the block, and
tacked down. The process of stretching is then proceeded with in the direction of
the ends of the leather, till it is evenly stretched and tacked down to the flat faces
of the block as shewn in Figs. 3 and 4.
When as many leathers as are undergoing this step in the process are dry, they
are cut off their respective blocks along the edges g of the same, leaving margins h
upon the block. Fig. 4 shews the leather cut along one edge, and the margin and
tacks removed.
In settling the dimensions of the templates A to produce leathers for a football
of a given size, it is, of course, necessary to make allowance for the margins c and h,
as well as for the stretching.

page_text: The length of a blocked leather (i.e., one which has undergone the process of
blocking upon a block D,) measured along the convex face from i to i, Fig. 3, is
equal to the major axis of a template A; and the width of the same, measured
along the line e, e, e, Fig. 4, is equal to the minor axis of the leather when cut
away from the template A.
The next step in the process of manufacture is that of sewing four leathers
together.
The first part of the sewing process consists in sewing together two blocked
leathers as they come from the blocks D. This is effected as follows.
Two leathers B, B, are held, as in a vice, between the flat edges of two
blocks E, E, the two convex faces of the leathers in contact and then sewn in the
way so familiar to workers in leather. This is illustrated in Fig. 5. When two
blocked leathers have been sewn together, they present the appearance illustrated
in Fig. 6, which is an end elevation of half the cover of a ball fresh from the
sewing, the seam e¹ having been hammered down.
Two other leathers, duly blocked as described above, are next sewn together in
the same way.
It has been pointed out that the blocks D are more than quarter spheres. The
extra length which is, therefore, given to the blocked leather along the lines e, e, e,
and i, i, makes up for the leather gathered in in the act of sewing, and still leaves
each quarter cover possessing a degree of convexity beyond the outline of a quarter-
sphere, as shewn in Fig. 6.
The next step in the process of manufacture is the preparation of the lining
bands, two of which are used in one cover.
Fig. 7 is a perspective view of a block F, upon which I block the lining bands G.
This block, on account of its size, is conveniently fitted with a handle g.
These bands are made of thin leather in four quarters, f¹. The shaping of them,
as far as imparting to them the same degree of convexity as that of the block, is
accomplished by wetting them and stretching them onto the block. When they
are dry, two waxed.threads, f³, are run round each band near the edges, to prevent
it stretching during the subsequent steps.
As the circumference of the block F at its edge is larger than that of a half-cover,
a band will pucker when it is inserted within the half-cover with its larger edge, h,
flush with the edge of said half cover. These edges (i.e., the edge of the half
cover and the edge h) are then temporarily tacked together, the puckering in the
band being distributed equally all round.
A second band is inserted and tacked (i.e., stitched lightly) to the other half-
cover, and the adjacent edges of both halves and bands are immersed in luke-
warm water to a depth of about half an inch, and held there until the leather is
saturated.
The lacing holes of the mouth piece may be made now or afterwards, and the
mouth flap sewn to one half-cover.
The next step in the process of making a ball according to my invention is that
of sewing the two half covers together. I will describe this step referring to Fig. 9
which is a perspective view of a finished football.
I bring the two halves together edge to edge, their outer surfaces touching, and
begin sewing the central seam ; at one end of the mouth k, passing the stitches
through the edges of the half covers and lining bands, and finishing about a third
of the seam, using the blocks shewn in Fig. 5 in the way described therewith.
I then turn the cover back again (i.e., the real outside to the outside), and hammer
the seam I have just made flat down. I then force the unsewn edges upwards,
sewing forwards and upwards, a short length at a time, hammering it flat as soon
as sewn. When there only remains an inch or so of seam to be made before
reaching the mouth again, I get at the edges of this last portion by forcing them
up through the mouth.
I next sew in the shields 7, which I place inside the ball. When they are sewn
to the cover, as indicated in Fig. 9, they cover all the corners of the four leathers

page_text: out of which the cover is made, and, therefore, prevent them from injuring the
rubber lining, and their absence from the outside leaves the ball with a smoother
and, therefore, less dangerous surface than if they were sewn on the outside as has
hitherto been the practice.
The indiarubber lining, or bladder, is represented in perspective in Fig. 8. The
body of this is made in two pieces only, with a filling tube, m, as usual. The
lining is inserted in the cover, the seam, n, of the former coinciding with the central
seam, j, of the latter, and the tube m passed through a hole made in the mouth flap
for that purpose.
The bladder is then blown, and as its inflation proceeds, the seams of the cover
and the lining bands stretch until the ball is spherical in shape, and tense.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that
what I claim is :-
1. Making a football cover out of four pieces of leather, cut, stretched and
blocked, substantially as above described with reference to the accompanying
drawings.
2. Fixing the shields to cover the points of the pieces of leather out of which a
foot-ball cover is made, inside the cover, substantially as described with reference
to the accompanying drawings.
111 1
A
1004
PHILLIPS & LEIGH,
Agents for the Applicant.